American ^len of %ttttt$ 

FRANCIS PARKMAN 




/LCI<2^l o^r / CZ>^sfc^7<i^. 



American i»en of ftcttecjS 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 



BY 



HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1904 



-5" 



LIBRARY ot CONGRESS 
Two Codes Received 

MAY 19 1904 

Cooyrleht Entry 

CLASS^ «- XXc. No. 

$ o 1 S- 3 
COPY B 



COPYRIGHT I9O4 BY HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published May, iqc>4 



TO 

S. M. S. 

Qual vuol gentil donna parere, 
Vada con lei. 



PKEFACE 

The life of a scholar is almost of necessity un- 
eventful, and his accomplished work speaks for 
itself; therefore the biographer must deal in 
the main with the scholar's labors of acquisition 
and preparation. Journals kept on two summer 
vacations, and on a trip to Europe, and several 
erratic and scrappy notebooks, show Parkman's 
methods of examining historic places and of col- 
lecting historical materials. These, together with 
the " Oregon Trail," his own brief narrative of 
his life, and an irregular correspondence, consti- 
tute the autobiographical records of his life. 

My thanks are due to Miss Parkman, the his- 
torian's sister, for putting those records at my 
disposal ; to Mr. Charles Haight Farnham, the 
author of the " Life of Francis Parkman," for 
his generous permission to make what use I 
might wish of his biography — and but for his 
labors my own would have been fourfold greater; 
to Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., for their per- 



viii PREFACE 

mission to quote from that " Life " and from 
Parkman's published works; to the late Abbe* 
H. R. Casgrain, for leave to use his unpublished 
" Correspondence for twenty-eight years with 
Mr. Parkman ; " to The Westborough Histor- 
ical Society, for leave to make extracts from 
the " Diary of Kev. Ebenezer Parkman," and to 
those ladies and gentlemen who have kindly 
allowed me to print letters written to Parkman. 
I am also indebted to the monographs of Mr. 
Edward Wheelwright, the Rev. O. B. Frothing- 
ham, Mr. John Fiske, and Mr. Barrett Wendell. 

H. D. Sedgwick. 

New Yobk, April, 1904. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Achievement 1 

II. Ancestry 12 

III. Boyhood 20 

IV. College ........ 27 

V. Explorations 32 

VI. The Margalloway 45 

VII. Travels 56 

VIII. Europe 69 

IX. In Sicily 80 

X. Naples and Rome 90 

XI. From Florence to Edinburgh . . . 105 
XII. A Make-beleeve Law Student . . 116 

XIII. Preparation for Pontiac .... 133 

XIV. Off on the Oregon Trail . . . 148 
XV. The Ogdllallah 160 

XVI. A Rough Journey 168 

XVII. Life in an Indian Village .... 181 

iXVIH. Under Dr. Elliott's Care . . .193 

XIX. Ill Health, 1848-1850 205 

XX. Ldje and Literature, 1850-1856 . .217 

XXI. 1858-1865 229 

XXII. History and Fame 246 



X CONTENTS 

XXIII. Canada and Canadian Friends . . . 263 

XXIV. Later Ldje 282 

XXV. Character and Opinions .... 304 

XXVI. A More Intimate Chapter . . . 316 

APPENDIX 
Autobiographical Letter of 1886 . . . 327 
Poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes .... 339 

INDEX 341 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 



CHAPTER I 

ACHIEVEMENT 



There is a fine passage in Bunyan which de- 
scribes the fighting courage of the Puritan 
type: — 

Then said Great-heart to Mr. Valiant-for- 
Truth, " Thou hast worthily behaved thyself ; let 
me see thy sword." So he showed it to him. 

When he had taken it in his hand, and 
looked thereon a while, he said, " Ha ! it is a 
right Jerusalem blade." 

Valiant. It is so. Let a man have one of 
these blades, with a hand to wield it and skill to 
use it, and he may venture upon an angel with 
it. He need not fear its holding, if he can but 
tell how to lay on. Its edge will never blunt. 

Great-heart. But you fought a great while. 
I wonder you was not weary. 

Valiant. I fought till my sword did cleave 
to my hand ; and then they were joined together 
as if a sword grew out of my arm, and when the 
blood ran through my fingers, then I fought with 
most courage. 



2 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Great-heart. Thou hast done well. . . . 

Mr. Great-heart was delighted in him (for he 
loved one greatly that he found to be a man of 
his hands). 

Parkman was such another Valiant-for-Truth, 
and with the right Jerusalem blade of character 
fought his victorious way. Silent in pain, patient 
in accomplishment, modest in victory, gentle in 
bearing, and yet determined to grimness, he 
proved himself lawful heir of the best Puritan 
traits. The name Puritan he disliked, but how- 
ever much he might wish he could not escape 
his moral ancestry. He inherited not the acci- 
dental beliefs of the Puritans, but their attitude 
toward life, their disposition and inherent bent. 
" Not happiness but achievement " was his watch- 
word. Cut off by race and temperament from 
those light, sunny, skeptical, feminine moods 
that belong to other bloods, his nature was con- 
centrated in the pith of his race. With head 
erect, jaw fixed, shoulders square, he was the 
image of New England's best. He had New 
England's difficulty of self-expression, he was 
not without traces of her inflexibility of mind, 
and he was endowed, more than the measure of 
his race, with a proud, shy tenderness. 

Nature would have made a soldier of him, but 
in Fortune's hugger-mugger allotment of parts, 
it fell to him to grasp the pen instead of the 



ACHIEVEMENT 3 

sword ; his name is not written upon fort and 
battlefield, but it is inseparably united with the 
story of the first great epoch in the history of 
North America. 

In the field of history Parkman's name stands 
as high, perhaps higher, than that of any other 
American. John Fiske, a student of the histo- 
rians of Europe and America, says : " Into the 
making of a historian there should enter some- 
thing of the philosopher, something of the natu- 
ralist, something of the poet. In Parkman this 
rare union of qualities was realized in a greater 
degree than in any other American historian. 
Indeed, I doubt if the nineteenth century can 
show in any part of the world another historian 
quite his equal in respect to such a union. . . . 
It is only the historian who is also philosopher 
and artist that can thus deal in block with the 
great and complex life of a whole society. The 
requisite combination is realized only in certain 
rare and high types of mind, and there has been 
no more brilliant illustration of it than Park- 
man's volumes afford." And he adds, speaking 
of Parkman's whole history: "Strong in its 
individuality, like to nothing else, it clearly 
belongs, I think, among the world's few master- 
pieces of the highest rank, along with the works 
of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Gibbon." 

A writer in the " Spectator," reviewing an Eng- 



4 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

lish edition of Parkman's works, says: "Fran- 
cis Parkman long since won an honorable place 
among the classic historians of the world, and it 
is with the greatest cordiality that we welcome 
the present reprint of his works. Now, at last, 
we have a library edition which we may put by 
the side of Gibbon and Michelet, of Livy and 
Taine. For Francis Parkman need not fear the 
most august society; he has the true genius of 
history in him, — the genius which knows how 
to wed accuracy with romance." Goldwin Smith 
compares him with Tacitus. Professor Albert 
Bushnell Hart says : " Francis Parkman is the 
greatest of all the writers who have ever made 
America their theme or have written as American 
scholars, and his greatness depends upon three 
qualities rarely brought together in one man ; 
he was a matchless investigator, a man of the 
most unflinching tenacity, and somehow he knew 
how to write so that men loved to read him." 

These are enthusiastic praises, and Mr. Fiske, 
who had a warm heart and a fine capacity for 
friendship, might be thought to have spoken 
from a May morning mood, the English reviewer 
might be deemed over-grateful to Parkman after 
reviewing other historians, Goldwin Smith en- 
thusiastic from love of Canada, Professor Hart 
from love of Harvard ; but such conjectures fail, 
for these men make but the mouthpiece of the 



ACHIEVEMENT 5 

common voice. The boy who in the course of 
nature reads Parkman after Cooper and the Wa- 
verley novels finishes "Pontiac" or "Montcalm 
and Wolfe" with a "By Jove, that's bully!" 
The temperate person of uncertain age says, 
" What an admirable piece of work ! how true, 
how just! would that our fiction had half the 
charm of such history ! " The student rejoices in 
the accuracy, the impartiality, the wise correct- 
ness of this history. 

It is for scholars, however, to decide whether 
Parkman is as great as Thucydides and Gibbon ; 
the very suggestion is more than enough honor 
for any other historian ; it is for readers to de- 
termine if his books are as agreeable as Michelet 
or Livy ; the biographer can but show whether 
the historian has been loyal to his task, — 
whether he has studied, explored, reconnoitred 
in all those places where he might ferret out 
knowledge of his subject; for in such loyalty 
lies not only the historian's honor, but also what 
benefit men may derive from history. 

In considering the merits of a historian, heed 
must be paid to the subject of the history, the 
theme must be looked at ; a little man minces 
up to a little subject, a strong man strides up 
to a great subject. No story of Martha's Vine- 
yard, of Dorking, or Tarascon could deserve the 
title of a great history. Parkman chose worthily, 



6 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

sagaciously seeing clearly where other men had 
only peered. His subject is universally acknow- 
ledged to be a great subject. It is the history of 
Canada, it is the history of the United States as 
well. The events which he recounts are the great 
prologue to the drama of the American Revo- 
lution ; they are the slow factors which begot 
sentiments of mutual dependence among bicker- 
ing colonies, and finally, forcing them to confed- 
erate, enabled them to break the ties that held 
them to Great Britain and to found a new nation. 
Incidentally, as a story of two nations of differ- 
ent stocks, Parkman's history involves the con- 
trast between two political systems, — one where 
a single man holds the power of the state, the 
other where the general body of citizens possess 
it ; likewise it involves the contrast between two 
great religious systems, Roman Catholicism and 
Teutonic Protestantism. The English- French con- 
flict was the struggle between two sets of ideas 
— one derived from Rome, the other from Ger- 
many — for domination on the continent of North 
America. In Europe those discordant ideas had 
set up their respective boundaries ; in the New 
World they fought not for boundaries, but for 
all or nothing. The importance of this struggle 
Parkman was perhaps the first fully to realize. 
So great a theme imposed a grave duty. 

Parkman's self-training and self-education, in 



ACHIEVEMENT 7 

order to fulfill this duty, make the most interest- 
ing part of his life. To be sure, as a historian 
of past time, he had in some respects unrivaled 
opportunities. When Froude described Eliza- 
bethan buccaneers and Freeman the Normans of 
the Conquest, they were constrained to use that 
constructive sense which out of manuscripts, 
stones, and bones must create living men ; but 
Parkman was able to live in the past, as it were, 
to use eyes and ears instead of his imagination. 
Indians, French Canadians, and American fron- 
tiersmen are his dramatis personal. Fortunately 
for him, Indians are singularly persistent in an- 
cestral ways, singularly incapable of adaptation 
to altered modes of life. What the Iroquois and 
the Algonkins of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries were, such were the Snakes and the 
Dakotas of 1846. Likewise the French Cana- 
dian, in less degree, is rigid and obstinate ; the 
habitant follows his father's footsteps with the 
fidelity of instinct, what he learned to do as a 
boy he does as a man, and unless he emigrate, 
he remains the same from generation to genera- 
tion. Were it not for assaults from the outer 
world, his gun, his plough, his boat would re- 
main as they were in Frontenac's time ; so would 
his gayety and his politeness. In 1842 the fron- 
tiersman, also, on the borders of Vermont and 
Maine, was not greatly changed from his pre- 



8 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

decessors of a century before. Those were still 
the days before the great Irish immigration ; 
the frontiersmen whom Parkman met in his 
undergraduate days were Yankees, handling 
gun and axe very much as their forefathers 
had done, theological, independent, lanky, ready, 
rough, unmannerly. So, too, in the days of Park- 
man's roamings, the woods on the borders of 
Lake George and of Lake Champlain, the for- 
ests of pine, spruce, oak, and maple, between 
the White Mountains and the St. Lawrence, 
had not changed since the French and Indian 
wars. Here fortune favored him. Paris of the 
second empire was not like the Paris of Henri 
IV, London of Queen Victoria was not the 
London of Charles II ; but in Parkman's boy- 
hood great tracts of the American forest were 
changed only in so far as old trees had fallen to 
decay and young shoots had grown up to take 
their places. 

All these dramatis personce — the Indian, the 
Canadian, the frontiersman, the forest — could 
be studied in the life, and in these respects Park- 
man had great advantages over other historians. 
These advantages he used to the full, and this 
little book will, in great measure, consist merely 
of Parkman's own accounts of these studies 
afield. But the peculiar praise due to Park- 
man is that he determined, while still a lad, not 



ACHIEVEMENT 9 

merely to write a history of the French and 
English war, but to be thorough in his prepara- 
tion. Thoroughness ordinarily means alcoves, 
green shades, spectacles ; with Parkman it meant 
not merely such " emasculate scholarship," but 
also hardening the muscles, aiming the rifle, 
riding bareback, in order to qualify the student 
to undertake his outdoor studies. 

Fully aware of the greatness of his under- 
taking, ready and eager to submit to whatever 
schooling should best educate him, Parkman 
judged that history should be written with a 
view to being read. However accurate, however 
profound it be, if it remain on the shelf, whether 
of the bookshop or public library, it is a failure. 

Parkman, too, was deeply impressed with the 
beauty, the color, the romance of our North 
American history ; he believed that beauty, color, 
romance are not mere trappings and holiday 
decorations of history, but integral parts, and 
that to omit them is to be false to fact. To some 
men this world, both present and past, looks dry, 
dull, autumnal ; to Parkman it blossomed with 
the bloom of spring, and he knew that, in order 
to gather and preserve that beauty in little black 
printed letters, art was necessary, and that art 
means training. Therefore he set himself to 
work to become a master of art in prose, just as 
he worked to become a master of art with his 



10 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

rifle. His diaries are sketches and studies in 
narrative, his reading aimed at the same end ; 
until after long years by this patient labor he 
was able to produce those " glorious " and " shin- 
ing " pages which, not for Mr. John Fiske alone, 
fill "the most brilliant and fascinating books 
that have been written since the days of Herodo- 
tus." 

By these means, by the simple method of faith- 
ful fulfillment of his duty, Parkman accom- 
plished his great task. " The path of duty was 
the path of glory," and to those who are pri- 
marily concerned with history and literature, the 
process of his preparation will be the most inter- 
esting period of his life ; but to those who prefer 
manhood to history, and fortitude to fame, who 
are zealous for American character, to them the 
most brilliant parts of Parkman's story are the 
periods of enforced idleness. In boyhood he had 
some physical weakness, and throughout his life 
from undergraduate days till his death, there 
is one long record of physical ills, pausing but 
continuing again inexorable, of lameness that 
forbade walking, of almost complete blindness 
that forbade seeing, of insomnia that banished 
sleep, of pain that stopped the impatient brain. 

Intense of purpose, impetuous in pursuit, in- 
tolerant of idleness, effeminacy, and indifference, 
emphatic in belief, dependent on himself alone, 



ACHIEVEMENT 11 

pleasant to his acquaintance, beloved by his 
friends, he fought his way through fifty years of 
achievement, a worthy comrade to those great 
figures in his histories whom he has lifted to 
fame and honor. 



CHAPTER II 

ANCESTRY 

Indomitable resolution was the chief trait in 
Francis Parkman. It may be somewhat fanciful 
to trace a single trait up the male line through 
eight generations, but in Parkman's case there 
is satisfaction in finding that this ascent takes us 
to Devonshire, the breeding place of indomitable 
spirit. Parkman's last English ancestor was Wil- 
liam Parkman of Sidmouth, Devon, of whom we 
know little, yet at least that he was born and 
bred in Elizabethan England, in the same shire 
that begot Raleigh, Drake, Gilbert, Hawkins, 
and other freebooting buccaneers, and that he 
was entitled to a birthright of will and courage. 
William's son Elias emigrated to Massachusetts 
Bay prior to 1633; there he married, and be- 
got a line of descendants, over whom — worthy 
people with Old Testament names — we may 
lightly skip to the fourth generation from the 
Devonshire ancestor. In that generation the 
twelfth child, Ebenezer, is well known by reason 
of a journal which he kept for many years. He 
graduated at Harvard College in 1721, at the 



ANCESTRY 13 

age of eighteen, and three years later was elected 
town minister of Westborough, Massachusetts. 
He continued his ministry in this little town for 
fifty-eight years, until his death. His published 
journal begins abruptly on February 13, 1737, 
about two years after his first wife's death. The 
minister's second attempt at wooing is recorded 
thus : — 

Feb. 17. Capt Foot & Sister Elizabeth & M™ 
Mary Tilestone took a ride with me in a double 
slay at evening to Capt. Robert Sharp's at Brook- 
line, & Br r Elias came to us upon my horse, after 
supper there. At 10 o'clock they returned in y e 
slay but I tarried. N. B. The discovery of my 
Inclinations to Capt Sharp & to Mm. By y eir 
urgent Persuasions I tarried and lodged there. 
N. B. M r _ 3 Susannah Sharp. [Mistress Susan- 
nah was twenty-one years old.] . . . 

March 3 d . Towards night I rode over to Rox- 
bury. N. B. I proceeded to Capt Sharp's. By 
Capt Sharp's strong Solicitation I tarried all 
night. N. B. Mrs Susan not very willing to 
think of going so far in y e Country as West- 
borough, &c &c &c. . . . 

March 4. I returned P. M. from Town & went 
again to Capt Sharp's. N. B. Capt Sharp & 
Mm. gone to the Funeral of a Relation at Rox- 
bury. I tarried whilst the Capt and his spouse 
came home. Arguments which be fruitless with 
Mrs Susan. I returned to Father Champney's 
between 8 and 9 in y e Evening. 

[This rebuff was received philosophically.] 



14 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

March. 18. Eve at D r . Gott's. M r _ 8 Gott had 
been very ill, but is recovering. Mrs Hannah 
Brech with her, but I spent my time with y e 
men. [Mistress Hannah was twenty-one years 
old and was a younger sister of Mrs. Gott.] . . . 

March. 19. A. M. To Dr. Gott's, but a short 
space with Mrs Hannah. At my Request, she 
had (she assured me) burnt my Letters, Poems, 
etc . . . 

March 25. I rode to Marl b [Marlborough]. 
Spent ye afternoon at D r Gott's — was at ye 
Coll.'s, [certain friends] but returned to Dr's. 
M* Hovey there with a Bass Viol. N. B. M r _ 8 
H h B k at ye Dr's still. Our conversa- 
tion of a piece with what it used to be. I mark 
her admirable Conduct, her Prudence and wis- 
dom, her good manners and her distinguishing 
Respectfulness to me w c [which] accompany her 
Denyals. After it grew late in y e Even'g, I 
rode home to Westb., through the Dark and the 
Dirt but cheerfully and comfortably (compara- 
tively). . . . 

April. 1. At Eve, I was at Dr. Gotts, Mrs 

H h was thought to be gone up to Mr 

Week's or Capt Williams, with design to lodge 
there, but she returned to ye Doctor's. And she 
gave me her Company till it was very late. Her 
Conversation was very Friendly, and with divers 
expressions of Singular and Peculiar Regard. 

Memoranda, Oscul : But she cannot yield to 
being a step mother. — I lodged there, and with 
g rt Satisfaction & Composure. 

The two were married in September and lived 
very contentedly, yet an entry on the anniversary 



ANCESTRY 15 

of his first wife's death, forty-three years after- 
wards, betrays the fact that she was his real 
love. 

The records of this diary, brief and matter-of- 
fact as they are, bring a vivid picture of the sim- 
ple, frugal country life of the time. The minis- 
ter's salary was eked out, or perhaps wholly paid, 
by the labor and the gifts of his congregation. 
For instance, in October, the month after his 
marriage, occur the entries : — 

6. Young men came to gather my corn. Set 
y m to work. . . . 

About 18 or 20 hands husked out all my 
Corn. N. B. in my absence Winter Apples 
gathered in. . . . 

7. M* John Pratt brought home my cyder which 
he had made. . . . 

12. M* Lock came & carried in Corn. . . . 

13. At evening Br r Hicks helped in more 
Corn. . . . 

14. Jon 11 Rogers got in Pumpkins, & ye re- 
mainder of y e Corn. . . . 

15. Noah How helped in with Turnips & some 
of y e Potatoes. . . . 

In this Westborougk minister we have a typi- 
cal instance of the moral and intellectual life of 
New England in that awkward age of transition 
preceding the Revolutionary War, during which 
Massachusetts and its fellow settlements were 
passing from boyhood to manhood. Here were 



16 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

still the narrow horizon, the scant intellectual 
resources, and the tough conservatism of Puritan 
days, but also that rigid sentiment of duty and 
that desire to do well and to make the most of 
granted opportunities, which have made New 
England what she has been. Francis Parkman 
and his great-grandfather, with the differences 
appropriate to their generations, held in com- 
mon this belief, that life is man's opportunity to 
try his mettle, to measure himself against adverse 
forces, and to determine whether he or they be 
the stronger and more resolute. The minister's 
intellectual life was limited, but not willfully lim- 
ited. He endeavored to acquaint himself with 
a wider range of thought than ordinarily found 
its way into Westborough. On the 13th of July, 
1779, is this entry : — 

M r Adams has brought home to me at length 
Sir W m Temple. He has led me also into an Ex- 
change of a number of Books viz. For Voetius 3 
vols, I have D T . Stanhope's Thomas a Kempis D r 
Calamy, of Vows : Horneck's crucified Jesus, & 
D T . Goodman's Old Religion. For Mons r Boi- 
leau's 2 d vol and Mat Prior's Works 2 vols, I 
have D r Hammond's Annotations in large Folio. 
For the Lay Monastery, I have Herman Pru- 
dence, & Three Select Pieces of M r Thos. Shep- 
herd. For Comin's Real Christian, unbound, I 
gave him at his proposal a Pound of Sugar. He 
presented me a Pamphlet, D T . Gibson on y e Sin- 
fulness of Neglecting and profaning the Lord's 



ANCESTRY 17 

Day. N. B. I returned him Drexilius on Eter- 
nity. 

The Kev. Ebenezer Parkraan died in his eighti- 
eth year. His successor in our story is Samuel 
Parkman, his son, a prosperous merchant and 
prominent citizen of Boston. He began life a poor 
boy — his father's purse was too light to pay col- 
lege fees ; " he did his own lugging," as he said 
in his opulent age, and when he came to die left 
a large property, a portion of which enabled our 
historian to devote his life to a non-money-getting 
pursuit. 

Several of Samuel's brothers displayed their 
New England spirit: William, at the age of 
seventeen, served in a Massachusetts regiment 
during the French war, keeping a diary, — a 
family trait ; Breck, a minute-man, marched 
from Westborough to Lexington on the 19th of 
April, 1775 ; a third brother also served in the 
Continental Army. 

Samuel's son Francis, father of the historian, 
was born in 1788, and graduated at Harvard 
College in 1807. Destined for the pulpit, he stud- 
ied theology under William Ellery Channing, 
and, in obedience to the moral law which then 
prevailed in Boston, became a Unitarian. He 
took to his grandfather's calling, and in 1813 
was ordained pastor of the New North Church, 
where he remained throughout his active life, and 



IS FRANCIS PARKMAN 

until bis son Francis had grown to manhood. 
He was a kind, benevolent man. esteemed an elo- 
quent preacher with •• a special gift in prayer," 
and took a prominent place among his fellow 
clergy. For thirty years he was one of the 
overseers of Harvard College, and presented a 
sum of money towards the endowment of the 
Parkman Professorship of Theology. His con- 
versation was well spiced with wit and humor ; 
anecdotes of his high spirits in talk are still 
remembered. He possessed a tenacious conserva- 
tism, and yet in spite of this their common trait. 
he was very unlike his more serious son. and 
did not sympathize with his literary ambition. 
Notwithstanding their differences and fundamen- 
tal lack of sympathy, he v 1 father, and 
did his duty as he saw it towards his son. To 
him a noble eulogy has been paid. •• he was par- 
ticularly kind to the unattractive." His fa 

pen and hospitable, and mai 
note in their day were entertained there. Happy 
memories long lingered on of u that bless 
Bowdoin Square house an .liant inmates 

. . . that spacious, hospitable mansion g: 
by ■ household into which it was an unspea". i 
privilege for a child to have been born." 

Francis Parkman resembled his mother more 
than his father. She was a tender, loving, duti- 
ful, unselfish woman, a creat favorite in the lar^e 



19 

fami whose interest in Etta iid Ml often 

travel beyond the thr - s h I ] of her home : 
too, was : Puritan stock, having escended 

ter, reserve, sin*] ■ certain sk 

humor. Frank was like her in many ways, and 

tie :lAer lie ::--■ :_iv z:;-r= :if exyr-fssion ;: _:s 
:'j;e VfJ.v^r like iifrs. 
. 
Eliz.s, mi J-im Eliot: Ml frrknaan had .vis; 
an older child. Sarah, by an earlier marriage. 



CHAPTER III 

BOYHOOD 

Francis Parkman, the historian, was born 
September 16, 1823, in a house on a little street 
which runs across the northern slope of Beacon 
Hill, then known as Somerset Place, now Allston 
Street. The Rev. Mr. Parkman lived there until 
Frank was six or seven years old, when he moved 
to a larger house, No. 1 Green Street. Town life 
was not suited to the boy ; his health was deli- 
cate, and his woodland nature, unsatisfied with 
the resources of his father's yard, rebelled against 
the cramping streets and alleys of the city. He 
went to Medford to live with his mother's father, 
Mr. Nathaniel Hall, who, having retired from 
business, kept a farm about a mile from the vil- 
lage. Frank, as day-scholar, attended a boarding- 
school for boys and girls kept by Mr. John 
Angier, a graduate of Harvard College. Others 
liked the school but Frank did not, and since with 
boys as well as with men learning waits upon 
liking, he learned little ; but he was constant in 
his attendance at another school, adapted to his 
disposition and well equipped to teach him the 



BOYHOOD 21 

beginnings of that knowledge which was to make 
him famous, — the school of the woods. At the 
distance of a few rods from Mr. Hall's farm lay 
the Middlesex Fells, a capital wilderness. This 
tract of six or seven square miles, of rocky, 
barren soil, retained no marks of certain ancient 
and vain attempts at cultivation except some old 
apple-trees and tumble-down stone walls. It had 
ponds, — one, half a mile across ; a hill hundreds 
of feet high ; heaths, glens, dales, crags ; thickets 
full of trees too big to clasp, jungles of under- 
brush ; rotten stumps to be smashed by a battle- 
axe ; thick moss to drive a spear into ; mud to 
smear new clothes from head to foot ; glorious 
varieties of dirt, and all the riches of a wilder- 
ness. In this great school and playground the 
boy spent all the time he could save from Mr. 
Angier, gathering birds' eggs, setting traps for 
squirrels and woodchucks, catching snakes, or 
creeping on his belly with bow and arrow to 
get a shot at a robin, which, in spite of the 
utmost ingenuity of approach, by some chance, 
miraculous in the hunter's eyes, almost always 
succeeded in flying away unharmed. These days 
of rambling through this trackless forest were 
among the happiest of his life ; he always liked 
to look back upon them. No doubt they owe a 
part of their joyous colors to the black back- 
ground of Mr. Angier's school. In spite of a 



22 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

pure and honest purpose of play, the roamings 
in Middlesex Fells provided Frank with some 
knowledge ; here he began to make a collection 
of minerals, which gradually grew until in course 
of time it became worthy to be presented to the 
Harvard Natural History Society ; here he 
hacked, picked, and plucked trees and flowers 
till he found to his surprise that he had learned 
a little botany ; here he acquired a love of plants 
which in later days, when ill health chained him 
to a garden chair, opened to him the vegetable 
kingdom ; here he picked up, by tail and hind 
legs, newts, frogs, pollywogs; and made close 
acquaintance with all kinds of little living crea- 
tures. 

Now things there are that, upon him who sees, 
A strong vocation lay ; and strains there are 
That whoso hears shall hear for evermore. 

So, in these early days, one may discover the 
bent of Parkman's mind towards the forest ; here, 
to quote his words, " he became enamoured of the 
woods," and plainly showed that inclination to- 
wards outdoor schooling and self -instruction in 
nature to which he gave loose rein in college. 

After four years at Medford Frank went back 
to Boston to live with his parents. In spite of 
active life in the country, his body was not ro- 
bust, and perhaps physical inability to join in 
athletic games was the cause that turned the 



BOYHOOD 23 

boy's attention to the indoor diversion of chem- 
istry. There was a shed at the rear of the house 
which his father converted into a laboratory, and 
here Frank shut himself up too steadily for the 
good of his health, and devoted himself to chem- 
ical experiments. In his fragmentary autobio- 
graphy he says that he accomplished nothing 
beyond poisoning himself with noxious gases and 
scorching his skin with explosions ; but probably 
he did well enough, his years considered, for his 
masterful disposition always determined to have 
the upper hand in a grapple with any study to 
which he turned. He impressed his comrades 
with respect for his skill, and succeeded in mak- 
ing an electrical machine with which he admin- 
istered shocks to sundry rash boys and girls. He 
also entertained himself and his friends with 
lectures, duly announced by printed bills. 

In the autobiography an extreme seriousness, 
begotten in great part by long illness, seems to 
have cast a shadow backward over his youth, or 
at least to have left the man somewhat oblivious, 
or careless, of the lightheadedness of his boy- 
hood, which, in fact, had its fair share of gayety. 
The records of his childhood indicate jollity and 
happiness ; and he would have been most ready 
to acknowledge this and render thanks, but in 
his little memoir his mind was fixed upon the 
lessons which others might learn from his life, 



24 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

and therefore he passed by those details which 
in that view were irrelevant. For instance, at 
the age of thirteen, Frank and his companions 
turned the loft of a barn behind the house into 
a theatre. They were the scene-painters, cos- 
tumers, and in part, perhaps, playwrights, as 
well as the company of players. Sometimes, in 
moments of greater ambition, they borrowed 
costumes from a theatre. Here is a copy of a 
play-bill, printed by one of the company : — 

STAR THEATRE. 

On Wednesday, Feb. 22, will be presented for the 
first time in this Theatre, (with new scenery, &c.,) the 
celebrated play of 

MY FELLOW CLERK/ 
Mr. Hooker F. Minot 

Tactic - - * - - - - Wm. Marston 
Victim - - - - - - -Q. A. Shaw 

Fag - F. Parkman 

Mr. Knitbrow - - - - - C. Dexter 

Bailiff P. Dexter 

after which 

A COMIC SONG!! 

By Mr. Marston. 

To conclude with some interesting experiments in 
Chemistry by Mr. Parkman, being his first appearance 
as a Chemist. 

O^p 3 Doors open at 1-4 before 3. Curtain rises at 
1-4 after 3. 



BOYHOOD 25 

The company gave performances on Wednes- 
day and Saturday afternoons, and acted before 
their public for a year or two. Frank commonly 
played women's parts, and trailed calico skirts 
across the boards with great effect. 

About the year 1837 the Rev. Francis Park- 
man left Green Street, and moved his family 
into the "hospitable house," No. 5 Bowdoin 
Square, which his father, Samuel Parkman the 
merchant, had built. This was a large, hand- 
some house, in the colonial style, adorned with 
pilasters, which rose in dignity from the first 
story to the roof, with a round porch held up 
by Doric pillars ; there was a grass plot in front, 
and a general appearance of prosperity. In the 
rear was a large paved court, and beyond that 
a garden sloping away in terraces, where pear- 
trees did their best to reconcile boyhood to the 
abstinences of town life. The house and its 
yard were characteristic of Boston, displaying, 
the urban pleasures of retired leisure, full of 
unostentatious ease ; it marked the change which 
had come over the commonwealth since the 
days when her clerical aristocracy dwelt in little 
wooden houses like that of the Rev. Ebenezer 
Parkman at Westborough. 

Frank went to school under Mr. Gideon 
Thayer, and seems to have studied with dili- 
gence Latin, Greek, English, and the rudiments 



26 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

of science. He himself wrote long afterward 
concerning his experience at this school : — 

When fourteen or fifteen years old I had the 
good luck to be under the direction of Mr. Wil- 
liam Russell, a teacher of excellent literary tastes 
and acquirements. It was his constant care to 
teach the boys of his class to write good and 
easy English. One of his methods was to give 
us lists of words to which we were required to 
furnish as many synonyms as possible, distin- 
guishing their various shades of meaning. He 
also encouraged us to write translations, in prose 
and verse, from Virgil and Homer, insisting on 
idiomatic English, and criticising in his gentle 
way anything flowery and bombastic. At this 
time I read a good deal of poetry, and much 
of it remains verbatim in my memory. As it in- 
cluded Milton and other classics, I am confident 
that it has been of service to me in the matter of 
style. 

He had a boyish fancy for poetry, and put 
into verse the scenes of the Tournament at 
Ashby-de-la-Zouch in "Ivanhoe," which he and 
other boys declaimed with the dauntless declama- 
tion of boyhood. Perhaps the curious may here 
discover a touch of that fondness for rhetoric — 
the heart of the boy lasting on into manhood — 
that willingness to express with purple and gold 
the exaltation of a high mood which stayed with 
him always. 



CHAPTEK IV 

COLLEGE 

Frank entered the class of 1844 at the age of 
seventeen. Harvard College in those days was 
as different from the University of to-day as the 
rivulet from the river. There were sixty or sev- 
enty students in the freshman class ; most of 
them about sixteen years old. Frank must have 
been one of the older boys. The instruction was 
scarcely more advanced than in a good school 
to-day. President Quincy was not the executive 
head of a great corporation ; he was the shepherd 
of his flock, the father of his children. The 
yard served as a garden for Holworthy, Massa- 
chusetts, Hollis, Stoughton, University, the Law 
School, and the Chapel. Football was played 
for fun or some such old-fashioned reason on 
the Delta, by all the boys who cared to take off 
their coats and kick. There were no boat-races 
except such as random students rowed, in an- 
tique craft, against each other; so that a lad, 
like Frank, bent upon gaining muscular strength, 
was obliged to divide his times for exercise be- 



28 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

tween walking, riding, and dumb-bells. In social 
matters numbers were too few to permit the 
sections and subsections which now divide un- 
dergraduates into all the genera and species 
between the grinds, with nose to book, and the 
groups of young Pendennises — lilies of the field 
— who adorn Randolph and Claverly. But the 
college, both as a place of study and as an under- 
graduate world, by its very incompleteness, proba- 
bly served Frank's purposes as well as the present 
university would have done. In like manner as 
when a boy at Medford he had learned more 
from his own lessons in the Middlesex Fells than 
in Mr. Angier's class-room, so in Cambridge he 
continued to be his own teacher, and pursued a 
system that, if it had been followed in moder- 
ation, would have well fitted him to do his life's 
work. In his freshman year that life's work 
was haunting the background of his mind, not 
as yet in the definite form which it took a little 
later, but rather as a strong attraction which 
drew him towards the forest, and persuaded him 
that the way to woo her with success was to ac- 
quire strength of limb and understanding of 
woodcraft. 

There was a holiday side to his undergraduate 
life ; but usually Frank was going about his own 
business in his impetuous Devon fashion ; he 
tried to cram endurance by long walks taken at 



COLLEGE 29 

a pace far too rapid to make his companionship 
comfortable, and spent long hours into the night 
reading English classics and all sorts of books 
concerning American Indians. He avoided all 
interests and occupations that did not feed the 
sacred flame of his forest love. 

Prior to this time Frank had nursed a whim 
for poetry, and had entertained a notion that he 
might become a poet or a devotee of literature, 
half poet, half man-of -letters, for he was fond of 
poetry and had a knack for rhyming. Traces of 
this taste lasted up to the year after graduation, 
when he published in " The Knickerbocker " a 
poem of several hundred verses called " The New 
Hampshire Ranger." But the whim for poetry, 
like the caprice for chemistry, was quickly van- 
quished by the real interest of his life; and 
before the end of his freshman year all thought 
of poetry as a serious pursuit had passed out of 
his head. 

The real business of the year began with the 
summer vacation, when he took his gun and 
fishing-rod, and, in the company of his class- 
mate, Daniel Denison Slade, a tall and athletic 
young man, set forth on what might be called a 
field course in American history. In his autobi- 
ography Parkman says, with happy recollection : 
" For the student there is, in its season, no bet- 
ter place than the saddle, and no better com- 



30 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

panion than the rifle or the oar." He kept a full 
diary, from which lack of space forbids quota- 
tion. The two went on foot, with an occasional 
" lift," to the White Mountains and adjacent re- 
gions, and Parkman enjoyed himself immensely. 
This year was the determining period of his life, 
for in it he resolved to devote himself to the task 
of writing the story of French colonization and 
empire in North America, which he at last com- 
pletely accomplished after, as has been aptly said, 
" a half century of conflict." 

We need not suppose that Frank sat in Mas- 
sachusetts Hall, like Gibbon on the steps of the 
Capitol, and at a definite hour made up his mind 
to write a history ; but in his sophomore year 
"the plan was in its most essential features 
formed," and the designer immediately set to 
work to carry out his plan : — 

Before the end of the sophomore year my 
various schemes had crystallized into a plan of 
writing a story of what was then known as 
the " Old French War," — that is, the war that 
ended in the conquest of Canada, — for here, as 
it seemed to me, the forest drama was more stir- 
ring and the forest stage more thronged with 
appropriate actors than in any other passage of 
our history. It was not till some years later that 
I enlarged the plan to include the whole course 
of the American conflict between France and 
England, or, in other words, the history of the 



COLLEGE 31 

American forest ; for this was the light in which I 
regarded it. My theme fascinated me, and I was 
haunted with wilderness images day and night. 

There are few records, if there are any, of so 
large a purpose, conceived so young, and with 
such constancy executed ; and when we consider 
the pain, the attacks of almost complete blind- 
ness, the physical infirmities that barred his 
way, we may excuse those who in an outburst 
of American enthusiasm challenge the world to 
show such another hero in the world of letters 
since the death of Cervantes. 

Frank took his share in the ordinary college 
life of young gentlemen ; he was a member of 
the " Institute of 1770," of the " Hasty Pud- 
ding," of a little and very intimate group called 
the Ch it-Chat Club, whenever the mysterious 
letters C. C. were allowed to assume all their 
significance. He was a fair student, too, taking 
certain minor academical honors. At his com- 
mons he got the ironical nickname, " The Lo- 
quacious ; " he was never that, though all life 
long he enjoyed talking with his friends. He was 
good company, vigorous even fiery in argument, 
entertaining, an excellent story-teller, of lively 
imagination and well provisioned memory, and 
on the whole was much more sought than seek- 
ing. Boy and man, he was a modest, unassum- 
ing, resolute, high-minded gentleman. 



CHAPTER V 

EXPLORATIONS 

The college term ended in July, and Frank lost 
no time in setting out upon his summer excursion 
in company with his friend, Henry Orne White : 

July 15th, '42. Albany. Left Boston this 
morning at half-past six, for this place, where I 
am now happily arrived, it being the longest 
day's journey I ever made. For all that, I would 
rather have come thirty miles by stage than the 
whole distance by railroad, for of all methods of 
progressing, that by steam is incomparably the 
most disgusting. . . . 

July 16th. Caldwell. This morning we left 
Albany — which I devoutly hope I may never 
see again — in the cars, for Saratoga. . . . After 
passing the inclined plane and riding a couple 
of hours, we reached the valley of the Mohawk 
and Schenectady. I was prepared for something 
filthy in the last mentioned venerable town, but 
for nothing quite so disgusting as the reality. 
Canal docks, full of stinking water, superannu- 
ated rotten canal-boats, and dirty children and 
pigs paddling about formed the foreground of 
the delicious picture, while in the rear was a 
mass of tumbling houses and sheds, bursting 



EXPLORATIONS 33 

open in all directions, green with antiquity, 
dampness, and lack of paint. Each house had 
its peculiar dunghill, with the group of reposing 
hogs. In short, London itself could exhibit no- 
thing much nastier. . . . Finally reached Sara- 
toga, having traveled latterly at the astonishing 
rate of about seven miles an hour. " Caldwell 
stage ready." We got our baggage on board, and 
I found time to enter one or two of the huge 
hotels. After perambulating the entries filled 
with sleek waiters and sneaking fops, dashing 
through the columned porticoes and inclosures, 
drinking some of the water and spitting it out 
again in high disgust, I sprang onto the stage, 
cursing Saratoga and all New York. . . . 

Dined at the tavern, and rode on. Country 
dreary as before ; the driver one of the best of 
his genus I ever met. He regaled me as we rode 
on with stories of his adventures with deer, 
skunks, and passengers. A mountain heaved up 
against the sky some distance before us, with 
a number of small hills stretching away on each 
hand, all wood-crowned to the top. . . . But as 
we drew near, the mountain in front assumed a 
wilder and a loftier aspect. Crags started from 
its woody sides and leaned over a deep valley 
below. " What mountain is that ? " " That 'ere 
is French Mounting," — the scene of one of the 
most desperate and memorable battles in the old 
French War. As we passed down the valley, 
the mountain rose above the forest half a mile 
on our right, while a hill on the left, close to the 
road, formed the other side. The trees flanked 
the road on both sides. In a little opening in 



34 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

the woods, a cavity in the ground with a pile of 
stones at each end marked the spot where was 
buried that accomplished warrior and gentleman, 
Colonel Williams, whose bones, however, have 
since been removed. Farther on is the rock on 
the right where he was shot, having mounted it 
on the look-out — an event which decided the 
day ; the Indians and English broke and fled at 
once. Still farther on is the scene of the third 
tragedy of that day, when the victorious French, 
having been in their turn, by a piece of good 
luck, beaten by the valorous Johnson at his in- 
trenchment by the lake, were met at this place 
on their retreat by McGinnis, and almost cut to 
pieces. Bloody Pond, a little slimy dark sheet 
of stagnant water, covered with weeds and pond- 
lilies and shadowed by the gloomy forest around 
it, is the place where hundreds of dead bodies 
were flung after the battle, and where the bones 
still lie. A few miles farther, and Lake George 
lay before us, the mountains and water confused 
and indistinct in the mist. We rode into Cald- 
well, took supper — a boat — and then a bed. 

July 17th. Caldwell. The tavern is full of 
fashionable New Yorkers — all of a piece. 
Henry and myself both look like the Old Nick, 
and are evidently looked upon in a manner cor- 
responding. I went this morning to see William 
Henry. The old fort is much larger than I had 
thought ; the earthen mounds cover many acres. 
It stood on the southwest extremity of the lake, 
close by the water. The enterprising genius of 
the inhabitants has made a road directly through 
the ruins, and turned bastion, moat, and glacis 



EXPLORATIONS 35 

into a flourishing cornfield, so that the spot so 
celebrated in our colonial history is now scarcely 
to be distinguished. Large trees are growing 
on the untouched parts, especially on the em- 
bankment along the lake shore. In the rear, a 
hundred or two yards distant, is a gloomy wood 
of pines, where the lines of Montcalm can 
easily be traced. A little behind these lines is 
the burying place of the French who fell during 
that memorable siege. The marks of a thousand 
graves can be seen among the trees, which of 
course have sprung up since. . . . One of Mont- 
calm's lines ran northwest of the tavern toward 
the mountains. Two or three years ago in dig- 
ging for some purpose, a great quantity of deer, 
bear, and moose bones were found here, with 
arrows and hatchets, which the tavern keeper 
thinks mark the place of some Indian feast. 
The spikes and timbers of sunken vessels may 
be seen in strong sunlight, when the water is 
still, at the bottom of the lake, along the southern 
beach. Abercrombie sunk his boats here. There 
are remains of batteries on French Mt., and the 
mountain north of it, I suppose to command 
the road from Ft. Edward. This evening visited 
the French graves. I write this at camp, July 
18th. Just turned over my ink bottle and spilt 
all the ink. 

July 18th. Camp at Diamond Island. Set out 
this morning in an excellent boat, hired at Cald- 
well. . . . We landed occasionally, and fished 
as we went along. About ten o'clock stretched 
across Middle Bay and got bread, pork, and 
potatoes at a farmhouse, with which and our fish 



36 FRANCIS PARKMAN 



we regaled ourselves at a place half way down 
the Bay. Here I wrote my journal for yesterday ; 
we slept an hour or two on the ground, bathed, 
and read Goldsmith, which Henry brought in his 
knapsack. At three we proceeded to explore the 
bay to its bottom, returned, made for Diamond 
Island, which is now uninhabited, prepared our 
camp and went to sleep. 

July 19th. I woke this morning about as weak 
and spiritless as well could be. All enterprise and 
activity was fairly gone ; how I cannot tell, but 
I cursed the weather as the most probable cause. 
Such has been the case with me, to a greater 
or less degree, for the last three or four weeks. 
Kowed to-day along the eastern shore. . . . But 
everything was obscured with mist. When the 
wind became less violent we rowed to an island 
in the middle, where we are now encamped. 

Wednesday, July 20th. Entered the narrows 
this morning, and rowed among all the islands 
and along all the shores. . . . We passed under 
Black Mt., whose precipices and shaggy woods 
wore a very savage and impressive aspect in that 
peculiar weather, and kept down the lake seven 
miles to Sabbath Day Pt. High and steep moun- 
tains flanked the lake the whole way. In front, 
at some distance they seemed to slope gradually 
away, and a low green point, with an ancient 
dingy house upon it, closed the perspective. This 
was Sabbath Day Pt., the famous landing place 
of many a huge army. . . . We ran our boat on 
the beach of Sabbath Day Pt. and asked lodg- 
ing at the house. An old woman, after a multi- 
tude of guesses and calculations, guessed as how 






EXPLORATIONS 37 

she could accommodate us with a supper and a 
bed, though she could n't say nohow how we 
should like it, seeing as how she warn't used to 
visitors. The house was an old, rickety, dingy 
shingle palace, with a potato garden in front, 
hogs perambulating the outhouses, and a group 
of old men and women engaged in earnest con- 
versation in the tumble-down portico. The chief 
figure was an old gray-haired man, tall and spare 
as a skeleton, who was giving some advice to a 
chubby old lady about her corns. 

" Well now," said the old lady, " I declare 
they hurt me mighty bad." 

" I '11 give you something to cure them right 
off." 

" What is it ? I hope it ain't snails. I always 
hated snails since I was a baby, but I 've heerd 
say they are better for corns nor anything else 
at all," etc., etc. 

The old man was a revolutionary pensioner, 
Captain Patchin by name, and stout-hearted, 
hale, and clever by nature. . . . 

Thursday, 21st. Fished for bass. . . . We 
caught fish enough, landed, and with Myrtle 
Bailey, one of the young Brobdignagians, a sim- 
ple, good-natured, strong-handed, grinning son 
of the plough, set out on a rattlesnake hunt on 
the mountain back of the Point. . . . We soon 
reached a still higher point, which commanded 
the noblest view of the lake I had yet seen. 
There would be no finer place for gentlemen's 
seats than this ; but now, for the most part, it is 
occupied by a race of boors about as uncouth, 
mean, and stupid as the hogs they seem chiefly to 



38 FRAXCIS PARKMAX 

delight in. The captain's household is an excep- 
tion. . . . Afternoon: Fished again. Evening: 
Fished again, and caught a vervlarae bass — all 
in company of Myrtle, whose luck not satisfying 
him. he cursed the M darned cussed fish " in most 
fervent style. 

Friday, -2nd. Left old Patehin's this morn- 
ing. . . . We broke an oar when within about 
half a mile, and paddled to shore with great dif- 
ficulty through a considerable surf which was 
dashing against the beach like the waves of the 
ocean. We found the post-oince a neat little 
tavern kept by one Garfield, entitled the Judge. 
He referred us to a carpenter, who promised to 
make an oar forthwith, and worked six hours 
upon it. an interval which I spent chiefly in 
wandering through the country. . . . Keturned 
to Garfield's, and found there Mr. Gibbs with 
his wife the "vocalist." Presently the man ap- 
peared with the oar finished. White undertook 
to pay him with a Xaumkeag Bank bill — the 
only bills he had. M Don't know nothing about 
that money : wait till Garfield comes and he '11 
tell whether it 's genuine or not." M There "s the 
paper." said I : " look and see." He looked — all 
was rii^ht. ••Well, are yon satisfied?" "How 
do I know but what that ere bill is counterfeit. 
It has a sort of counterfeit look about it to my 
eyes. Deacon, what do you say to it?" The 
deacon put on his spectacles, held the bill to the 
light, turned it this way and that, tasted of it, 
and finally pronounced that according to his cal- 
culation it was good. But the carpenter was not 
contented. " 'Bijah, you 're a judge of bills : 



EXPLORATIONS 39 

what do you think ? " 'Bijah, after a long exam- 
ination, gave as his opinion that it was counter- 
feit. All parties were beginning to wax wroth, 
when the judge entered and decided that the bill 
was good. 

We pushed from the beach and steered down 
the lake, passed some islands, and beheld in 
front of us two griin mountains, standing guard 
over a narrow strait of dark water between. . . . 
One of these mountains was the noted Kogers 
Slide, the other, almost as famous, Anthony's 
Xose, Jr. Both had witnessed, in their day. the 
passage of twenty vast armies in the strait be- 
tween : and there was not an echo on either but 
had answered to the crack of rifles and screams 
of dying men. We skirted the base of the Nose 

— for which sentimental designation I could find 
no manner of reason — till we arrived opposite 
the perpendicular front of his savage neighbor. 
About a mile of water was between. We ran the 
boat ashore on a shelving rock, and looked for a 
camping place among the precipices. We found, 
to our surprise, at the side of a steep rock, amid 
a growth of cedars and hemlocks, a little inclos- 
ure of logs, like a diminutive log cabin without 
a roof. We made beds in it of hemlock boughs 

— there was just space enough — brought up 
our baggage and guns, ate what supper we had, 
and essayed to go asleep. But we might as 
well have slept under a shower-bath of melted 
iron. In that deep sheltered spot, bugs, mos- 
quitoes, and *• no-see-ems " swarmed innumera- 
ble. . . . This morning was the most toilsome 
we have passed. The wind was dead against us ; 



40 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

the waves ran with a violence I had never seen 
before except on the ocean. It required the 
full force of both arms to hold the boat on her 
course. If we slackened our efforts for a single 
moment, she would spin round and drive back- 
wards. We had about twelve miles to row under 
these agreeable auspices. 

"Well," said White, "you call this fun, do 
you ? To be eaten by bugs all night and work 
against head winds all day is n't according to my 
taste, whatever you may think of it." 

"Are you going to back out ? " said I. 

" Back out, yes ; when I get into a bad scrape, 
I back out of it as quick as I can," and so he 
went on with marvelous volubility to recount his 
grievances. Lake George he called a " scrubby 
looking place," — said there was no fishing in it 
— he hated camping, and would have no more of 
it, — he would n't live so for another week to save 
his life, etc., etc. Verily, what is one man's meat 
is another man's poison. What troubles me 
more than his treachery to our plans is his want 
of cash, which will make it absolutely necessary 
to abandon our plan of descending through 
Maine. His scruples I trust to overcome in time. 

We reached Patchin's at last, and were wel- 
comed by the noble old veteran as cordially as if 
we were his children. We dined, and sat in his 
portico, listening to his stories. He is eighty- 
six. . . . 

We consigned our boat to the captain, to be 
carried back to Caldwell, and got on a stage we 
found at the wharf, which carried us to the village 
of Ty. [Ticonderoga], It is a despicable manu- 



EXPLORATIONS 41 

facturing place, straggling and irregular, — mills, 
houses, and heaps of lumber, — situated in abroad 
valley with the outlet of Lake George running 
through the middle, a succession of fierce rapids, 
with each its saw-mill. I bespoke me here a pair 
of breeches of a paddy tailor who asked me if I 
did not work on board the steamboat, a question 
which aggravated me not a little. I asked a 
fellow the way to the fort. " Well," said he, 
" I 've heerd of such a place, seems to me, but I 
never seen it, and could n't tell ye where it be." 
44 You must be an idiot," thought I ; but I found 
his case by no means singular. At last I got the 
direction, and walked about two miles before I 
saw the remains of a high earthen parapet with 
a ditch running through a piece of woods for a 
great distance. This, I suppose, was the place 
where the French beat off Abercrombie's army. 
Farther on, in a great plain scantily covered 
with wood, were breastworks and ditches in 
abundance running in all directions, which I 
took for the work of Amherst's besieging army. 
Still farther were two or three square redoubts. 
At length, mounting a little hill, a cluster of 
gray ruined walls, like an old chateau, with 
mounds of earth and heaps of stone about them, 
appeared crowning an eminence in front. When 
I reached them, I was astonished at the extent 
of the ruins. Thousands of men might have en- 
camped in the area. All around were ditches, of 
such depth that it would be death to jump down, 
with walls of masonry sixty feet high. Ty stands 
on a promontory, with Champlain on one side 
and the outlet of Lake George on the other ; his 



42 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

cannon commanded the passage completely. At 
the very extremity is the oldest part of the for- 
tress, a huge mass of masonry, with walls sinking 
sheer down to the two lakes. All kinds of weeds 
and vines are clambering over them. The sense- 
less blockheads in the neighborhood have stolen 
tons upon tons of the stone to build their walls 
and houses of, — may they meet their reward. 

Wednesday, 27th. In Yankee land again, 
thank heaven. Left Ty this noon — after going 
over the ruins again — in one of the great Cham- 
plain steamboats, and reached Burlington at 
night. Visited the college. It was term time 
and the students were lounging about the ugly 
buildings or making abortive attempts at revelry 
in their rooms. The air was full of their diaboli- 
cal attempts at song. We decided that they were 
all green, and went back, drawing comparisons 
by the way between the University of Vermont 
and old Harvard. 

Thursday, 28th. Left Burlington this morn- 
ing, knapsack on back, for Canada. . . . We 
followed the road through a deep wood, and 
when we emerged from it the village of Cam- 
bridge lay before us, twenty-five miles from 
Burlington. We stopped here for the night. 

Friday, 29th. From Cambridge we walked on 
to Johnson. ... At Johnson we took the stage 
for Stanstead, in Canada. The " stage " was a 
broken down carryall, into which six passen- 
gers with luggage were stowed, and the thing 
set in motion — under the auspicious influences 
of two sick horses — over a road of diabolical 
roughness. 



EXPLORATIONS 43 

Saturday, July 30th. Stanstead, Canada. Re- 
sumed our journey this morning in the same 
" stage." . . . The place is large, with several 
handsome churches. There was nothing in par- 
ticular to distinguish it from a flourishing Yan- 
kee town till we pulled up at the tavern, where 
were two or three British soldiers, in their un- 
dress, standing on the porch. There were thir- 
teen of them, with a cornet, quartered at the 
house, as there now are in all the border villages. 
They were good-looking fellows, civil enough ; 
natives of the provinces. They were gathered 
round a fire in the barroom, smoking and tell- 
ing stories, or else indulging in a little black- 
guardism and knocking one another about the 
room. They invited us to drink with them, and 
the liquor being mead — the house being tem- 
perance — we consented. They have just clubbed 
to buy a barrel of cider. 

Sunday, July 31st. Last night we were kept 
awake by the din of bugles and drums with which 
the soldiers were regaling themselves in the entry, 
singing and dancing meanwhile. This morning 
rainy and dismal. Soldiers and all gathered 
round the stove in the barroom. Their conver- 
sation was about as decent and their jokes as 
good as those of a convocation of Harvard stu- 
dents. . . . 

We set out on foot for Canaan, which pro- 
mised land some told us was twenty miles distant, 
while others reckoned it thirty. The road for a 
few miles was good, but we were soon compelled 
to leave it and take a path through the woods. 
A beautiful river — smooth and rapid — ran 



44 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

across the road under a bridge of logs, between 
forest-covered banks. Not far from Stanstead 
we had crossed a furious stream, answering to 
the sentimental designation of the Nigger River. 
We had walked but a few miles when the clouds 
settled on the hills and it began to rain. We 
went to a log cabin for shelter. The " old man " 
was frank and hospitable like all his genus I 
ever met, and the " old woman " — a damsel of 
twenty-two, who sat combing her hair in the cor- 
ner — extremely sprightly and talkative. She 
seemed somewhat moved at heart by the doc- 
trines of Miller, whose apostles are at work all 
along the Vermont frontier. We abused that 
holy man to our content, and, the rain ceasing, 
left the cabin. Soon after leaving this place we 
entered the aforementioned path through the 
woods. Now and then there would be a clearing 
with its charred stumps, its boundary of frown- 
ing wood, and its log cabin, but for the most 
part the forest was in its original state. The 
average depth of the mud in the path was one 
foot. . . . The day was showery, with occasional 
glimpses of the sun ; so that we were alternately 
wet and dry. . . . Thence passing various dwell- 
ings, and holding various colloquies with the in- 
mates, we reached Canaan, and a good tavern. 
The landlord has quartered [us] in his hall — 
large as a barn. Canaan is a microscopic village, 
the houses scattered through a valley among 
low mountains, all covered with forest. We saw 
here the Connecticut for the first time — rapid 
and full of rocks and foam. We follow its 
banks to-morrow. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE MARGALLOWAY 

Tuesday (2d). Weather still cold and bluster- 
ing. Thick clouds all over the sky. Set out after 
breakfast for the Connecticut Lake, twenty 
miles distant. . . . White seems to have lost his 
apathy and is now quite ready to proceed. Re- 
ports of the Margalloway trout have inflamed 
him. The road was still hilly, narrow, and great 
part of the way flanked by woods. The valley 
of the river looked, as it always does, rich and 
fertile, but the hills and mountains around pre- 
sented one broad unbroken expanse of forest, 
made the more sombre by the deep shadows of 
the clouds. In the afternoon we reached a hill- 
top and a vast panorama of mountains and for- 
ests lay before us. A glistening spot of water, 
some Tniles to the north, girt with mountains 
which sloped down to it from all sides with a 
smooth and gradual descent, was Lake Connecti- 
cut. As far as we could see, one mountain of 
peculiar form rose above the rest which we af- 
terward learned was the Camel's Hump. Passing 
a river with rapids and a saw-mill, at the end 
of the day we reached the lake, where are two 
houses, Barns' and Abbot's. There are steep 
rapids at the outlet, with a mill, of course. We 



46 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

went to Abbot's house, and asked for lodging 
and a supper. . . . Abbot says that one of his 
relations, Kenfield by name, fought at William 
Henry, and, at the massacre, seeing an Indian 
about to strip a fallen officer, caught him, raised 
him in his arms, and dashed him to the ground 
with such violence as to make him senseless. 
Our host greatly exults in the bodily strength 
for which his family have been eminent — he 
himself noway dishonors his race in that respect. 
Wednesday (3d). . . . We lived in backwoods 
style to-day — sugarless tea for dinner — water 
drunk from a mug common to all the company, 
etc. We liked it — I did, at least. Abbot sat 
cobbling his shoe against his projected expedition 
towards evening, but as I came up he turned 
round and remarked that he was not a disciple 
of St. Crispin but only an occasional follower. 
As I was marveling at this unexpected display 
of erudition, his wife thrust her head from the 
door, and exclaimed, " Here, supper 's ready. 
Where 's that other man gone to ? " We ac- 
cepted the elegant invitation and walked in, 
where Abbot astonished us still more by com- 
paring the democrat levelers to Procrustes, who 
wished to reduce all men to the same dimensions 
by his iron bedstead. All this was while he was 
squatting on his home-made chair, one leg cocked 
into the air, shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows, 
bushy hair straggling over his eyes, and eating 
meanwhile as if his life depended on his efforts. 
I have since found that he has read a vast amount 
of history, ancient and modern, and various other 
things — all fact, however, for fiction, he says, he 



THE MARGALLOWAY 47 

cannot bear. When twenty-five — he is now 
thirty-six — he defended himself against a good 
lawyer in a court, and won his case, his opponent- 
confessing himself outmatched by Abbot's gen- 
eral knowledge and quick memory. 

Thursday (4th). Started this morning to 
strike the Little Margalloway. We proceeded 
first towards the north, with a path for the first 
few miles. It soon failed us, and we had to force 
our way through tangled woods. . . . White had 
hurt his foot the day before and constantly lagged 
behind, so that we had to wait for him, every 
minute the prey of torturing flies. At length 
the ascent of the first mountain made the way 
still more laborious. When at length we reached 
the top we could see nothing on account of the 
thick growth of trees. We passed through a 
singular piece of boggy ground, of an oblong 
shape, inclosed in a fringe of cedars rising one 
above the other, all hung with tassels of white 
moss. There was another place, partially open, 
near the summit. As we passed it, a large buck 
sprang from the ground, and leaped with long 
bounds down the mountain, before my rifle was 
at my shoulder. We heard him crashing the 
boughs far below. In this spot were several 
springs of cold water, in broad cup-shaped hol- 
lows in the ground, which had probably attracted 
the deer. We went down the mountain and 
found a little stream flowing through the valley 
at the bottom. Both Abbot and myself were for 
proceeding, but White said he could not go on 
on account of his foot ; so we found a convenient 
spot and encamped. It was by the stream, flow- 



48 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

ing half concealed beneath brushwood and fallen 
trees, in a thick growth of firs, spruces, and 
birches. We made a fire, and proceeded to cook 
our supper. We had brought with us seven 
pounds of bread, six and a half of rice, and a 
quantity of butter. We had beside about an 
ounce of tea, and salt, of course. 

We made our fire in the middle of the grove, 
cut spruce boughs for a bed, lay down on our 
blankets, and with our knives speedily made way 
with a mess of rice placed on a broad piece of 
birch bark amongst us. Then we heaped new 
wood on the fire, and lay down again, cooled by 
a gentle rain which just now began to fall. The 
fire blazed up a column of bright flame, and 
flung its light deep into the recesses of the woods. 
In the morning we breakfasted on rice, bread, 
and tea without sugar and cream, and then — 
Friday — prepared to resume our course. . . . 
After journeying many hours in this painful 
style, we heard the plunging of waters in a 
valley below us, and joyfully turned towards 
the sound. We had struck a branch of the Little 
Margalloway. White's lameness seemed mys- 
teriously to leave him; he seized his fishing 
tackle and rushed up and down the rocks, pull- 
ing a trout from every deep hole and the foot of 
every waterfall. I soon followed his example. 
Abbot built a fire by the bank and cooked our 
fish. We made a plentiful dinner, and then 
began to follow downward the course of the 
stream. . . . 

Saturday, Aug. 5th. The morning opened with 
a grand council. How were we to get down the 



THE MARGALLOWAY 49 

river? Abbot could make a raft, thought he 
could make a spruce canoe, and was certain that 
he could make a log one. I told him to make 
a log one. We roused White from the spruce 
boughs where he persisted in snoring, in spite 
of our momentous discussion, and then prepared 
and ate our breakfast. White went to fishing. 
Abbot shouldered his axe and he and I went off 
together for a suitable pine-tree to make our 
canoe of. He found one to his satisfaction on 
the other side of the stream, some distance down. 
I built him a fire to " smudge " the flies, waded 
back across the stream, and as I ascended the 
farther bank heard the thundering crash of the 
falling pine behind me, bellowing over the wil- 
derness, and rolling in echoes far up the moun- 
tains. ... As I went back to camp, I found 
that Abbot was not at work on his canoe. While 
I was marveling at this I stumbled upon a half 
finished spruce canoe, which Abbot had set about 
making, having found the pine-tree, which he 
had cut down for his log boat, rotten. I was not 
much pleased at this change of plan ; neverthe- 
less, as the thing was begun I lent him assistance 
as I could, so that by nightfall we had finished 
something which had the semblance of a canoe, 
but, owing chiefly to haste and want of tools, 
had such a precarious and doubtful aspect that 
White christened it the Forlorn Hope. We put 
it into the water. It leaked. We took it out and 
stuffed the seams with pounded spruce bark, 
chewed spruce gum, and bits of cloth. It still 
leaked, but we hoped it would do, with diligent 
baling ; so, fastening it to the bank, we cooked 



50 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

our supper, rolled ourselves in our blankets, and 
went to sleep before the fire. 

Sunday, Aug. Gth. We were obliged perforce 
to adopt the sailor's maxim, "No Sunday off 
soundings," for our provisions were in a fair 
way of failing, and starvation in the wilderness 
is not a pleasant prospect to look forward to. 
. . . After breakfast we packed our luggage, 
and proceeded to make the dubious experiment 
of the canoe. All were embarked ; White in the 
middle to bale, Abbot at the stern, I in the prow. 
" Push off !'" the canoe glided with a quiet and 
gentle motion down the swift stream, between 
the tall walls of forest on each side, but soon the 
ripple and tumbling of a rapid appeared in front 
and the hour of trial came. She quivered and 
shook as she entered the disturbed waters ; at 
last there was a little grating sound. She had 
struck upon the stones at the bottom, but the 
peril was past ; the water grew smooth and deep 
again, and again we floated quietly and prosper- 
ously down in the shadows of the woods. At 
last another rapid came. She entered it, grated 
heavily over the stones, and struck hard against 
a large one before her. The water spouted in 
like a stream from a pump. It would not do. 
The experiment was an utter failure. We left 
Abbot with the canoe to conduct that and the 
baggage as he could down to the basin, and 
waded to shore ourselves to walk there through 
the woods. We had not gone quarter of a 
mile when " Hello, here," came from the river. 
"What's the matter now?" shouted we in re- 
turn. " The canoe 's burst all to pieces ! " Sure 



THE MARGALLOWAY 51 

enough, we found it so. Abbot stood in the mid- 
dle of a rapid, up to the knees, holding our bag- 
gage aloft to keep it dry, while the miserable 
remnant of the demolished vessel was leisurely 
taking its way down the current. We pushed 
through the woods towards the basin, deliberat- 
ing what to do next. Abbot was sure he could 
make a raft which would carry us down to the 
settlements, and yet draw so little water as to 
pass the " rips " in safety. The navigation would 
indeed be slow with such a machine, but it could 
be made in an hour or two, and this would more 
than counterbalance the want of speed. The river 
was high ; the plan seemed eligible, and we pro- 
ceeded to execute it. Meanwhile it began to 
rain furiously. We walked into the water to our 
waists and held the timbers in place while Abbot 
withed them together. Jerome's camp was de- 
molished to furnish materials, his setting-poles 
and birch-bark vessels appropriated to our use. 
After about two hours of aquatic exertion, dur- 
ing which we were wet equally by the rain above 
and the river beneath, the raft was finished. 
Owing to the badness of the timber it drew 
twice as much water as we expected. We pushed 
from shore in a deluge of rain. Like its luckless 
predecessor, the raft passed the first rapid in 
safety, only venting a groan or two as its logs 
encountered the stones beneath. These rapids 
in the main river were of course much deeper 
than those of the Little Margalloway, above the 
basin, where the canoe had met its fate. When 
it came on the second rapid, the machine seemed 
to shiver in direful expectancy of its approach- 



52 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

ing destruction. Presently it grunted loud and 
dolefully. We set our poles and pushed it into 
the deepest part. For a while it bumped and 
blundered downward ; at length there was a 
heavy shock, a crash, a boiling and rushing of 
many waters. The river spouted up between the 
logs. We were fixed irrecoverably aground. The 
water coursed savagely by us, and broke over 
the end of the raft, but it could not be moved. 
The result of this second experiment was more 
dismal than of the first. We were in the middle 
of the river; the trees on both shores loomed 
gloomily through rain and mist, and a volume 
of boiling and roaring waves rolled between. 
However, there being no remedy, we walked in, 
and, by dint of considerable struggling, waded 
safe to the western bank, where I directed Abbot 
to try no more experiments but to work on a 
log canoe till he had finished it. He accordingly 
felled another tree, while we were, with great 
difficulty on account of the rain, building a fire. 
Abbot worked with great perseverance and skill. 
Before night, his canoe was nearly hewed out. 
We plied him with tea to keep his spirits up, 
relieved him of the cooking and all his other 
duties, so that his task was accomplished in what 
seemed an incredibly short time. That afternoon 
I went back to the basin to get fish for the pub- 
lic benefit. At night the rain, which had ceased 
for a while, began to pour afresh. We put up 
White's blanket, which was wet, for a tent, and 
spreading mine on the ground beneath, made a 
great fire before it, ate our supper, and lay down. 
As soon as we were quiet, the continual drop- 



THE MARGALLOWAY 53 

ping and splashing of rain through the forest 
had a sound singularly melancholy and impres- 
sive. White dropped asleep, after his established 
custom on all occasions, but Abbot and myself, 
both of us wet to the skin, chose to lie and talk 
before the fire till past midnight. Our guide is 
a remarkably intelligent fellow, has astonishing 
information for one of his condition, is resolute 
and as independent as the wind. Unluckily, he 
is rather too conscious of his superiority in these 
respects, and likes too well to talk of his own 
achievements. He is coarse and matter-of-fact 
to a hopeless extremity, self-willed, and self- 
confident as the devil ; if any one would get 
respect or attention from him, he must meet 
him on his own ground in this matter. He is 
very talkative. I learned more, from his con- 
versation, about the manners and customs of the 
semi-barbarians he lives among, than I could 
have done from a month's living among them. 
That night in the rain, leagues from the dwell- 
ings of men, was a very pleasant one. We slept 
a few hours towards day, and rose before it was 
fairly light, he to finish the canoe, we to pre- 
pare breakfast. We launched the boat soon 
after, embarked, and paddled down stream. . . . 
At length we saw, on the left bank, a camp 
built of logs for the .use of " loggers." We went 
ashore. The place was dry, the roof being slant 
and thatched waterproof, with a hole at one side 
to let out the smoke of the fire. . . . Fortunately, 
I had secured my matches in a tin case, and this 
in my waterproof knapsack, so that we were 
able to build a fire with the aid of some dry 



54 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

birch bark we found in the hut. . . . Hanging 
our superfluous clothing to dry, we laid down in 
the rest and slept comfortably all night. 

Tuesday, Aug. 8th. [After a hard paddle and 
a long tramp they reached Brag's.] 

Wednesday, Aug. 9th. Left Brag's this morn- 
ing to walk to Colebrook. I had to carry about 
thirty pounds weight, including my blanket, which 
having covered White's shoulders through all the 
storms of yesterday, had become saturated with 
moisture, and was about as heavy when rolled 
up as a log of hard wood. Abbot carried his for 
him. The day was overcast and showery. When 
we had got about six miles, we overtook an old 
fellow in a wagon, who was jolting along over 
stones, logs, gullies, and all other impediments, 
towards Colebrook. White got in with him and 
rode the rest of the way, Abbot and I going on 
together, first committing the baggage to his 
care, except my knapsack, which I chose to keep 
with me. . . . 

Thursday, Aug. 10th. Stayed at Colebrook to- 
day, for want of means to get off. In the villain- 
ous little hole of a tavern there, there is never 
anything stirring to break the dismal monotony. 
Every day is a Sunday. . . . 

Friday, Aug. 11th. The stage came by this 
morning from Canaan. It is called a stage, but 
is in reality a milk-cart. We got in. At noon we 
reached Lancaster, where White stopped, being 
reduced to his last quarter of a dollar, to see his 
uncle and borrow the needful of him. I kept on 
to Littleton, where I now am. 

Saturday, Aug. 12th. Started for home by way 



THE MARGALLOWAY 55 

of Plymouth. . . . With an accommodating driver 
and a pleasant party of ladies and gentlemen — 
one of the former exceedingly handsome, roman- 
tic, and spirited — we rode on towards Plymouth, 
and got there late at night. There was a gen- 
eral on board, — a man of exalted character and 
vast political influence which he exercised on the 
righteous side of radical democracy, fiercely main- 
taining that ninepence was better than a million 
dollars, insomuch that the possessor of the first 
is invariably a good man and contented with his 
lot, while the owner of the last is always a grasp- 
ing, avaricious child of the devil. When the gen- 
eral alighted at his own tavern he saluted the 
first loafer who met him at the door as "Major," 
the next but one was " Colonel," while our driver 
answered to the title of " Captain." 

Not long after his return home the autumn 
term of his junior year began. 



CHAPTER VII 

TRAVELS 

In the winter of his junior year Frank made a 
visit to the village of Keene, New Hampshire, 
where his classmates lived — George S. Hale, 
destined to an honorable position at the Boston 
bar, and Horatio J. Perry, subsequently first 
secretary to our legation at Madrid. Here he 
followed deer-tracks, which lent a great interest 
to the snow-covered ground even without sight 
or smell of buck or doe, and here he forgot the 
ill success of the chase in the company of some 
attractive girls, of whom his friends often make 
mysterious mention in their invitations to him, 
— " There are some here who would not be dis- 
pleased at your coming." 

It is not to be wondered that girls liked him. 
He was a tall lad, near six feet, of strong build, 
straight legs, and soldierly carriage. His face 
was brave, open, and sunny, full of trustfulness 
and manhood, his brow broad and intelligent, 
his thick brown hair, parted at the side, curled 
a little where it was brushed back over the ears ; 
his nose was masculine but delicate, his mouth 



TRAVELS 57 

good, and his chin the emblem of fortitude. 
The garb of the period became him, — the 
swallow-tail coat with big round buttons, rolling 
away to show the white waistcoat and shirt- 
front, a bandanna or plaid cravat swathed round 
the neck, reminiscent of the stock, and knotted 
sparkishly under the chin. Boyish convictions, 
flashes of vehemence, good humor, and good 
manners, made his conversation acceptable, even 
to persons who were indifferent to the " flourish 
set on youth." 

The most important and the most unfortunate 
event of his junior year, however, was not the 
society of young women but the building of the 
first gymnasium at Harvard. Frank set to work 
with his usual " pernicious intensity," in order 
to craw, into six months the swelling muscles 
that should have been acquired in as many years, 
and strained himself ; and, in consequence of 
this strain, or perhaps from general ill-health, 
that summer he forebore a journey into the 
woods and contented himself with a tour by 
Lake George, Montreal, Quebec, and the White 
Mountains in search of historical information. 
His little pocket diary shows his methods : — 

Giles F. Yates, Esq., Schnectady. 

"The best of Am. Antiquarians " — that is, 
with an extensive knowledge of the colonial hist, 
of N. Y. 



58 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Rev. Mr. Williams, Schenectady. 

Kerney — Clergyman, Clermont, Columbia 
County, N. Y. A grand-nephew of Sir W. 
Johnson. 

The Germans of the Mohawk know much of 
Sir William and family. 



The gent, who told me the preceding told me 
also what follows. He was a man of most ex- 
tensive and minute information on similar topics. 
His ancestor's house, together with one other, 
were all that escaped the Schnectady burning 
[Count Frontenac, etc., pp. 212, etc.] — for this 
reason. His ancestor, an old Dutchman, saved 
a Jesuit priest whom the Mohawks were about 
to burn at their " burning place " near Schenec- 
tady. The priest was secretly packed in a hogs- 
head, boated down to Albany, and thence sent 
home to Canada. The old man accounted to the 
Mohawks for his escape by the priest's omni- 
potent art magic. This priest accompanied the 
war party and protected the house. 

The grandf ather-in-law of this gent, was saved 
when at the stake by Grant. He made the ma- 
sonic sign, Grant was a Mason and so interfered. 



Lake George. On a little hill by a pine-tree, 
near Ft. George, I saw a flat rough stone with 
an inscription as follows : " 1776. Here lies 
Stephen Hedges," and more unreadable. Close 
by, on a fresh ploughed [field] a boy with me 
found a buckshot and a coin about the size of a 
50 ct. piece. I myself picked up a musket ball 
and a copper coin. 



TRAVELS 59 

Montreal — Friday. Visited the nunnery of 
the Soeurs Grises, Hospital for invalids, School 
for children. Patients hideous to look upon — 
nuns worse. Building of the same rough gray 
stone generally used here. . . . Two regiments 
are in town — 71st Highlanders and the 89. A 
part of the 43rd are on the island a short way 
off. . . . 

" Hope Gate." Quebec is defended some- 
thing in this manner : [Here follows a diagram 
lettered] G — gate, B blockhouse, stone below, 
with loops for musketry — wood above, and 
portholes for two cannon commanding the street 
S, which is a precipiece on one side, a a a loops 
all along the wall, c two more guns on the wall, 
also commanding the street. . . . 



" Emily Montague," a novel to be read forth- 
with. Butler — Jesuits. 



[The traveler then went to Crawford's, and 
to Franconia Notch.] 

M. S. Wars of Canada — C. F. Hoffman knows. 



Hoffman's " Wild Scenes in Forest and Prai- 
rie," " Winter in the West," etc. 



From Senter Harbor to Fryeburg, spent Sun- 
day and visited the Pond. Paugus's gun, so 
called, is shown at the Academy. [Half Century 
of Conflict, vol. i. p. 258.]. . . Stayed a day 
or two and rode on to Ethan's to spend the 
night. Mrs. C. soon produced her history of her 



60 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

husband's adventures, etc. — a manuscript which 
she means to publish. . . . 

" Captivity of Mrs. Johnson," Windsor, Vt., 
1807. 

A book worth getting, " Frontier Life in '44," 
etc. . . . 

Robert Southey had in his possession the 
whole of Wolfe's correspondence. 

Went over to see the Indians. . . . Saw 
Francois and others, — some squaws extremely 
good-looking with their clubbed hair [?] and 
red leggings. . . . The Indians use the genuine 
wampum. . . . There are a number of loggers 
in their red shirts seated in the bar ; some of 
them have been to see "the Lord's Supper." 
One expressed his disapprobation of the charac- 
ter of the exhibition as follows : " G — d d — n it, 
I should like to take that fellow by the nape of 
the neck, and pitch him into the road. He 's no 
right to serve that 'ere up for a show in that 
way." 

Bought some wampum of F.'s squaw which he 
says he bought from the Caughnawagas near 
Montreal 25 years ago. It is, however, some- 
times made by the whites in Canada. 

Frank picked up some bloody yarns from the 
Indians, and discontinued his diary. The last 
entry is, " Saturday night, had no supper." 

That summer there was another visit to Keene, 
and the plan at least of a visit to his classmate 
Snow at Fitchburg ; the visit had to be deferred 
on account of the illness of Snow's father. 



TRAVELS 61 



SNOW TO FRANK. 



Fitchburg, Tuesday [1843]. 

My dear Frank, — ... A hard thing it is 
for me, my friend, to have your visit delayed 
even for a week. I had famous anticipations of 
the glorious times I should have with you. And 
mother had no less agreeably anticipated your 
visit, and had baked twenty most unexception- 
able mince pies, each one of which I should ven- 
ture to pit against that famous one of your sis- 
ter's, nice as it was. However, they will keep till 
you come back. — Now I stipulate most firmly 
that you make me the visit when you have finished 
your sojourn in the enchanted land [Keene], and 
if you don't, I shall have terrible suspicions that 
" your gorge has risen " at the delay. I also 
stipulate you use your influence to get Hale 
to accompany you, and I will entertain both as 
far as my capabilities will admit. 

Yrs in great haste, 

Chas. A. B. Snow. 

Thus passed winter and summer in that happy 
time when a buckshot on a historic field, yes- 
terday's rabbit-tracks in the soft fallen snow, 
twenty unexceptionable mince pies, and the ran- 
dom glance from a pair of eyes, indifferent black, 
will convert much poorer material than a New 
England village into an enchanted land. The 
holidays passed, as holidays will, hopping, skip- 
ping, jumping ; but when college opened its lec- 
ture rooms, Frank found himself not well enough 



62 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

to take up college life, and it was decided to 
send him to Europe. He started on a dull No- 
vember day; he was not well, the ship was a 
little craft, his fond mother and his little sisters 
were very unhappy to part with him, so there 
was very little cheer that day, but Frank was 
not daunted, and went off, no doubt, with boyish 
smiles on his face and boyish tears in his heart. 
He kept a long diary, — for he would not inter- 
mit his training in rhetoric, — from which I take 
the following pages : — 

Barque Nautilus, November 16th, '43. 
(Devil of a sea — cabin dark as Hades.) 

Got under weigh from Central Wharf about 
10 A. M. of Sunday, Dec. 12th [November 12] 
— fine weather, and a noble west wind. . . . 
Before long we were pitched up and down on an 
execrable swell — the fruit of yesterday's east 
wind. The barque tossed about like a cork, 
snorted, spouted the spray all over her deck, 
and went rushing along like mad in a great 
caldron of foam she raised about her. At the 
same time it grew cloudy, and the wind became 
stronger. The sea rose and fell in great masses, 
green as grass, the wind driving the spray in 
clouds from their white tops. As I came from 
the cabin, I beheld to my great admiration a 
huge wall of water piled up in front, into which 
the vessel was apparently driving her bows ; a 
moment more, and the case was reversed — her 
bowsprit and half her length rose straight from 



TRAVELS 63 

the waters and stood relieved against the sky. 
In consequence of which state of things I, like a 
true greenhorn, grew seasick by the time we 
were fairly out of sight of land. Accordingly I 
got into my berth as soon as it was dark, and 
stayed there twelve hours. 

When I came on deck in the morning, the 
weather had changed nowise for the better. I 
wrapped myself in my cloak, and sprawling on 
the poop-deck read the " Bible in Spain." A 
schooner, with only topsails set, went scouring 
past us, before the wind, homeward bound — 
also, in the afternoon, a brig, tossing so that her 
keel was almost visible. A troop of porpoises 
went tumbling about us, and I ransacked the 
vessel in vain for a musket to get a shot at them. 

The next morning opened under direful aus- 
pices. I came on deck, disconsolate with sea- 
sickness, when I was straightway saluted by 
about two hogsheads of water which came dash- 
ing over the gunnel, accommodating me with a 
most unwelcome morning shower-bath. ... I 
spent most of the morning in my berth, reason- 
ably miserable with seasickness — cogitating, 
meanwhile, on things human and divine, past, 
present, and to come. When dinner-time came, 
I heard the captain's invitation to dinner, and 
staggered to the cabin door, determined to accept 
it, in spite of fate, when lo ! the ship gave a 
lurch, the plates and the rack which should have 
secured them slid together from the table, in a 
general ruin, to the floor. . . . We have a sin- 
gular company on board — the three officers, "the 
passenger," the steward, and six men, viz. : a 



64 FRANCIS PARKMAN 






Yankee, a Portuguese, a Dane, an Englishman, a 
Prussian, and an old gray-haired Dutchman, the 
best sailor in the ship. Of the officers, the cap- 
tain is a sensible gentlemanly man ; the mate has 
rather more individuality, being, as to his outer 
man, excessively tall, narrow-shouldered, spindle- 
shanked, and Ian tern- jawed, with a complexion 
like dirty parchment. Mr. Jonathan Snow is 
from Cape Cod, a man of the sea from his youth 
up. When I first came on board he was evidently 
inclined to regard me with some dislike, as being 
rich(iy He constantly sighs forth a wish that he 
had five thousand dollars " then ketch me going 
to sea again, that 's all." He is rather given to 
polemic controversies, of which I have held sev- 
eral with him, on the tenets of sophists, Unita- 
rians, Universalists, Christians, etc., etc. Of 
course, he imagines that men of his rank in life 
labor under all sorts of oppressions and injustice 
at the hands of the rich. Harvard College he 
regards with peculiar jealousy, as a nurse of aris- 
tocracy. " Ah ! riches carry the day there, I 
guess. It's a hard thing to see merit crushed 
down, just for want of a thousand dollars." 

Mr. Hansen, second mate, is the stoutest man 
on board, and has seen most service, but being, 
as Mr. Snow remarks, a man of no education, he 
has not risen very high in the service. He ac- 
companied Wyeth's trapping party to the Rocky 
Mts., where he was more than once nearly starved 
and within a hair's breadth of being shot. He 
speaks with great contempt of Indians, but not 
with quite so much virulence as I have known 
from some others of his stamp. He plumes him- 



TRAVELS 65 

self on having killed two or three. " Oh, damn 
it, I 'd shoot an Indian quicker than I 'd shoot a 
dog." He is now seated at supper, amusing me 
and himself with some such discourse as fol- 
lows : — 

" I 've lost all my appetite, — and got a horse's. 
Here, steward, you nigger, where be yer — fetch 
along that beef-steak. What do you call this 
here ? Well, never mind what it be ; it goes down 
damned well, anyhow." Here he sat stuffing a 
minute or two in silence, with his grizzly whis- 
kers close to the table, rolling his eyes, and puffing 
out his ruddy cheeks. At last pausing, and lay- 
ing down his knife a moment ! 

" I 've knowed the time when I could have ate 
a Blackfoot Indian, bones and all, and could n't 
get a mouthful, noway you could fix it." Then 
resuming his labors — "I tell you what, this 
here agrees with me. It 's better than doctor stuff. 
Some folks are always running after the doctors, 
and getting sick. Eat! that's the way I do. 
Well, doctoring is a good thing, just like religion 
— to them that likes it ; but damn the doctors 
for all me ; I shan't die," etc., etc. 

By treating Mr. Hansen with brandy and 
water, I have got on very good terms with him, 
and made him very communicative on the sub- 
ject of his Oregon experiences. Would that we 
had a consumptive minister, with his notions of 
peace, philanthropy, Christian forgiveness, and 
so forth, on board with us ! It would be sport of 
the first water to set Mr. Hansen talking at him, 
and see with what grace the holy man would lis- 
ten to his backwoods ideas of retributive justice 



66 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

and a proper organization of society. " Shoot 
him over, and that damn quick, too," is Mr. 
Hansen's penalty for all serious offenses. . . . 
As soon as it was daybreak I went on deck. 
Two or three sails were set, the vessel scouring 
along, leaning over so that her lee gunnel scooped 
up the water ; the water in a foam, and clouds 
of spray flying over us, frequently as high as the 
main yard. The spray was driven with such force 
that it pricked the cheek like needles. I stayed 
on deck two or three hours ; when, being thor- 
oughly salted, I went down, changed my clothes, 
and read Don Quixote till Mr. Snow appeared at 
the door with, " You 're the man that wants to 
see a gale of wind, are ye ? Now 's your chance ; 
only just come up on deck." Accordingly I went. 
The wind was yelling and howling in the rig- 
ging in a fashion that reminded me of a storm 
in a Canada forest. The ship was hove to. One 
small rag of a topsail set to keep her steady — 
all the rest was bare poles and black wet cord- 
age. I got hold of a rope by the mizzen mast, 
and looked about on a scene that it would be 
perfect folly to attempt to describe — though 
nothing more, I suppose, than an ordinary gale 
of wind. . . . 

Friday. As yesterday was Thanksgiving, I 
may as well record how we fared. Our breakfast 
was utterly demolished by the same catastrophe 
that overtook a former repast, that, namely, of 
being dashed in ruins upon the floor by an ill- 
timed lurch of the ship. We dined on a lump 
of ham, Cuffee being unable to purvey a more 
sumptuous banquet, because the seas put out the 



TRAVELS 67 

fire in his galley as fast as he kindled it. As for 
our supper, it was of bread, pork, and onions. 
Not that this is a fair sample of our bills of fare, 
which are usually quite as luxurious as any rea- 
sonable man need desire. . . . 

Wednesday, Dec. 6th. We have been tor- 
mented for ten days past with a series of accursed 
head winds. Here we are, within thirty-six hours* 
sail of Gibraltar, standing alternately north 
and south, with no prospect of seeing land for 
many days. The captain is half mad, and walks 
about swearing to himself in an undertone. Mr. 
Snow's philosophy has given way — and I never 
had any. Hansen alone is perfectly indifferent. 
He sits on deck whistling and talking over his 
work, without troubling himself about our where- 
abouts, or caring whether we are in the North 
Sea or at Cape Horn. 

Thursday, Dec. 7th. 

" Day after day, day after day, 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean." 

This has been our enviable position to-day. A 
dead calm — a stupid flapping of sails and creak- 
ing of masts. 

Saturday. Again a calm ! The captain's signs 
and portents have come to nought. A turtle 
came up at the ship's side to sleep on the quiet 
surface, but prudently sunk back to the depths 
just as Mr. Hansen was lowering me by a rope 
to take him prisoner. A few bonitos splashed 
about the bow, some "rudder fish " played along- 
side ; and a pair of " garfish " glided about in 



68 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

defiance of all attempts to capture them. Before 
noon a breeze — a favorable one — sprang up ! 
It bore us on a hundred miles farther, but now 
has subsided into the old trebly accursed calm. 

Tuesday. A light wind to-day but dead ahead. 
More porpoises and more fruitless attempts at 
harpooning, on the part of Mr. Snow. I am 
rapidly growing insane. My chief resource is the 
conversation of Mr. Hansen, who has humor, vol- 
ubility, much good feeling, and too much coarse 
rough manhood in his nature to be often offen- 
sive in his speech. Moreover, one man may say 
a thing with a very good grace that would be 
insufferable from the mouth of another. Witti- 
cisms and stories which, uttered by Snow, would 
make me turn my back on the fellow with con- 
tempt and disgust, sound well enough in the 
frank and bold accents of Hansen. 

Evening. We have beat up against the wind 
into full view of the Spanish coast. Right and 
left, from Trafalgar far beyond Cadiz, the line 
of rugged and steep bluffs reaches, with here and 
there a tower just visible with the glass. But 
about noon our evil genius becalmed us again ! 

Thirty days from Boston. Old Worthington 
promised that I should see Gibraltar in eighteen, 
but he is a deacon. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EUKOPE 

Wednesday evening. We have not yet reached 
Tarifa. Dozens of vessels come past us from 
Gibraltar, some of them of a most outlandish 
aspect to my eye. 

Thursday. More delay and vexation. The 
captain has not slept for two nights, and is half 
worn out by fatigue and anxiety. For myself, I 
was so exasperated by our continued ill fortune 
that I could not stay below. We passed Tarifa 
light about midnight — then were driven back 
four miles by a rain squall. But by nine in the 
morning we had fairly entered Gibraltar Bay ! 

[Gibraltar.] Saturday. Yesterday I came 
ashore in the barque's boat, landed, got passport 
signed and established myself at the " King's 
Arms." 

I dined at the consul's and spent the day in 
exploring this singular city — the world in epit- 
ome. More of it in future. This morning I set 
out, in company with a midshipman, the son of 
Captain Newton of the Missouri, to ride round 
the Bay to the Spanish town of Algeciras. 

Sunday. . . . Sunday is the day to see the 
motley population of Gibraltar at one glance. 
Just without the walls is a parade large enough 



70 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

to hold the six regiments stationed here. This 
evening, according to custom, everybody was 
thronging up there. I established myself at the 
foot of a bronze statue of the defender of Gi- 
braltar — I forget his name, General Eliot — 
but there he stands towering above the trees and 
aloes at the summit of a hill above the parade, 
with the emblematic key in his hand, and with 
a huge cannon aftid a mortar on each side of 
him. Here I had a specimen of every nation on 
earth, it seemed, around me. A dozen Moors 
with white turbans and slippered feet lolled one 
side ; Jews by couples in their gaberdines ; the 
Spanish gentleman in his black cloak and som- 
brero — the Spanish laborer with his red cap 
hanging on one side of his head — the Spanish 
blackguard in bespangled tights and embroi- 
dered jacket. On benches among the trees of- 
ficers and soldiers carried on successful love 
suits ; on the parade below English captains were 
showing forth good horsemanship to the best 
advantage. The red coats of soldiers appeared 
everywhere among the trees and in the crowd 
below. There were women in cloaks of red and 
black, ladies with the mantilla and followed by 
the duenna, — no needless precaution, — and ten 
thousand more, soldier and civilian, bond and 
free, man and woman and child. Not the least 
singular of the group were the little black slaves 
belonging to the Moors, who were arrayed in a 
very splendid and outlandish attire, following 
after their masters like dogs. Bands were 
stationed on the parade and around a summer- 
house among the trees. The evening gun dis- 



EUROPE 71 

solved the pageant — God save the Queen rose 
on the air ; then the crowd poured through the 
gates into the town. 

I went to a diminutive theatre in the evening, 
to see a play performed by the privates of an 
artillery company. . . . 

A " rock scorpion " carried me off to the fri- 
gates in the harbor, English and American. The 
reptile in question was a mixture of Genoese and 
French blood — spoke both languages fluently, 
besides English and half a score of others. . . . 

Sunday, Dec. — . Got tired of Gibraltar — 
heard of a government steamer about to sail for 
Malta — embarked on her, abandoning my pre- 
vious design of penetrating Spain immediately. 
... I was prepared for no very agreeable pas- 
sage, knowing the hauteur approaching to inso- 
lence of a certain class of English naval officers, 
and was surprised as well as gratified by the 
polite attentions of Lt. Spark, the commander 
of the boat, with whom I spent about half the 
night in conversation. Unfortunately I am the 
only passenger. Lt. Spark seems resolved that 
my voyage shall be agreeable notwithstanding — 
certainly, he spares no pains for my accommo- 
dation, opening his library to me, producing an 
endless variety of wines, doing all he can, in 
short, to promote my enjoyment. 

We have passed Cape de Got and the Sierra 
Nevada, which looks down on the city of Gra- 
nada. The coast of Barbary is now in full sight. 
To-day the old man mustered his sailors and 
marines in the cabin — a large and elegant one 
— and read the service of the Church, not for- 



72 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

getting a special prayer for the British Navy, 
and the success of the British arms. He knew 
Sir John Moore, Sir P. Parker, and other he- 
roes of those days, has shaken hands with 
Blucher, has fought the French by sea and land. 
Beside his manifold experiences in active life, 
he has been a great reader, not only of English 
works but of all the eminent American authors. 
. . . Here in this old world I seem, thank 
Heaven, to be carried about half a century back- 
wards in time. As far as religion is concerned, 
there are the ceremonies of the Catholic church 
and the English litany, with rough soldiers and 
sailors making the responses. A becoming hor- 
ror of dissenters, especially Unitarians, prevails 
everywhere. No one cants here of the temper- 
ance reform, or of systems of diet — eat, drink, 
and be merry is the motto everywhere, and a 
stronger and hardier race of men than those 
round me now never laughed at the doctors. 
Above all, there is no canting of peace. A whole- 
some system of coercion is manifest in all direc- 
tions — thirty-two pounders looking over the 
bows, piles of balls on deck, muskets and cut- 
lasses hung up below, the red jackets of marines, 
and the honest prayer that success should crown 
all these warlike preparations, yesterday re- 
sponded to by fifty voices. There was none of 
the new-fangled suspicion that such belligerent 
petition might be averse to the spirit of a reli- 
gion that inculcates peace as its foundation. 
And I firmly believe that there was as much 
hearty faith and worship in many of those men 
as in any feeble consumptive wretch at home, 



EUROPE 73 

who, when smitten on one cheek, literally turns 
the other likewise, instead of manfully kicking 
the offender into the gutter. 

Thursday. After a passage of about five days 
we reached Malta. 

Friday. Late last evening I made an attempt 
to see the Church of St. John. It was closed. 
My servant pommeled the oaken door in vain. 
He then proceeded to sundry coffee-houses in 
the neighborhood, hoping to find the man who 
had the doors in charge. Three or four Maltese, 
all jabbering their bastard Arabic, soon aided 
in the search. At length the great bell began 
to roar from the church tower, an unequivocal 
evidence that somebody was there. " Gulielmo, 
Gulielmo ! " roared my troop of assistants. After 
a lapse of five minutes Gulielmo descended and 
issued from a portal among the columns at one 
side, summoning me in. . . . [Here he describes 
the church.] Leaving reluctantly the church 
where so many brave men had kneeled to God 
for his blessing on their matchless enterprises, 
I got into a boat, and was put on board the Nea- 
politan steamer Francesco Primo, bound for 
Messina, where I lay an hour or two on deck, 
listening to the distant music of the English 
drums and trumpets. 

As I lounged about the deck in the morning, 
utterly unable to hold any intercourse with any 
one on board except by signs, a sleek-looking fel- 
low came up and accosted me in English. We soon 
got deep into conversation. My new acquaint- 
ance proved to be Giuseppe Jackson, a Sicilian 
with an English grandfather, who had been a 



74 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

cook at the Albion, and at Murdoch's tavern, 
had frequently been to Fresh Pond, knew some 
of the Cambridge students, and was now on his 
way to Mr. Marston's in Palermo. I was right 
glad to see him, cook though he was. He made 
me a very good interpreter. In the course of our 
conversation he made some remark about " the 
Pope, that fool." 

" What," said I, " do you speak so of the Pope. 
Are you not a Roman Catholic ? " 

" Ah ! I was till I live in America. I was all 
in the dark — you understand what I say — till 
I come there. Then my eyes open ; I say, dat 
for the Pope, and his old red cap. Ah ! once I 
was afraid to think of him." 

" You are no longer a Catholic ; what religion 
do you believe in now ? " 

" Oh, no religion in particular." 

I congratulated him on so happy a conversion 
from the error of his ways. 

At breakfast — a Mediterranean breakfast of 
eggs, fruit, and nuts — an old man, of severe 
countenance and tremendous mustache, sat op- 
posite me. We made various attempts at conver- 
sation ; as neither understood the other, we had 
to be satisfied with reiterated bowings, and mu- 
tual attentions of various kinds, in which the 
old man showed himself exceedingly apt and 
polite. I afterwards found that he was no less a 
personage than il Principe Statelli, a general of 
the Sicilian army — but Sicilian " Principes " 
are apt to be humbugs. 

Mount jiEtna is smoking vigorously in front 
of us. We are skirting the shore of Sicily. 



EUROPE 75 

We stopped at Syracuse. ... In going ashore, 
a little square-built English-looking man, making 
a low congee, presented me with a bundle of 
papers, which proved to be certificates of his 
qualifications as a guide to the curiosities of the 
place. Accordingly Jack Robinson — for such 
was his name — and I got into a kind of ferry- 
boat and landed on the other side of the bay. 
[His guide took him to the Ear of Dionysius 
and other places of interest.] 

Jack insisting on showing me his certificates 
of service in the American Navy, and I, being 
desirous of seeing how the Syracusans lived, 
went home with him, and enjoyed the exhibition 
of his numerous progeny, who were all piled 
together in bed. This done we took boat and 
went off to the steamer. Jack was so well satis- 
fied with the dollar and a half I gave him for his 
day's services that he must needs salute me after 
the Sicilian style with a kiss on the cheek, which 
I submitted to. He then departed, kissing his 
hand as his head disappeared over the ship's 
side. The stubborn English temper was well 
nigh melted away with his long sojourn among 
the Gentiles. He had been pressed in early 
youth into the navy — had served both England 
and America (though the latter, I believe, in the 
capacity of a washerman). As far as I could 
see, Jack was an honest man, an exceedingly 
rara avis in these quarters. 

Arriving at Messina in the morning, my ac- 
quaintance the cook — an experienced traveler 
— was of the greatest service to me. Indeed, 
without his assistance my inexperience and igno- 



76 FRANCIS PARKMAX 

ranee of the language would have put me to seri- 
ous embarrassment. He showed me how to treat 
a Sicilian landlord, and to bribe a custom-house 
officer. I am indebted to him for very excellent 
accommodations at a very reasonable price. 

Messina, Sunday. I took my station outside 
one of the gates in the rear of the city, to look 
at the scum of humanity that came pouring out. 
All was filth, and age, and ruin. — the walls, 
the tall gateway with its images and inscriptions, 
the hovels at the top of the wall and in the an- 
cient suburb, all seemed crumbling to decay. The 
orange and lemon groves in the ditch of the for- 
tification were dingy and dirty, but away in the 
distance appeared the summits of the mountains, 
almost as wild and beautiful as our mountains of 
Xew England. I thought of them, and, in the 
revival of old feelings, half wished myself at 
home. I soon forgot, however, all but what was 
before my eyes, in watching the motley array 
that passed by me. Men and women literally 
hung with rags, half hid in dirt, hideous with 
every imaginable species of deformity, and bear- 
ing on their persons a population as numerous 
as that of Messina itself. — these formed the bulk 
of the throng. Priests with their black broad- 
brimmed hats and their long robes. — fat and 
good-looking men. — were the next numerous 
class. They draw life and sustenance from these 
dregs of humanity, just as tall pigweed flour- 
ishes on a dunghill. Then there were mustachioed 
soldiers, very different from the stately and se- 
date soldier of England. There were men bear- 
ing holy pictures and images ; ladies in swarms, 



EUROPE 77 

whose profession was stamped ou their faces ; 
musicians, with a troop of vagabonds in their 
rear. All around the gateway were the tables 
of butchers, fruiterers, confectioners, money- 
changers, boot-blackers, and a throng of dirty 
men, women, and children. Shouts, yells, and 
a universal hubbub. 

Tuesday, Jan. 2nd. This morning I set out on 
an expedition to see a little of the country, in 
company with a Spanish gentleman, Don Mateo 
Lopez, who speaks good English. We hired a 
carriage together, and got outside the gates by 
eleven, after some trouble in procuring pass- 
ports. At night we reached a little fishing town 
called Giardini, not far from xEtna. The weather 
was beautiful, the atmosphere clear and soft. 
As for the scenery on the road, it was noble be- 
yond expression. For myself, I never imagined 
that so much pleasure could be conveyed through 
the eye. The road was a succession of beautiful 
scenes, — of mountains and valleys on one side 
and the sea on the other ; but as to the people, 
they are a gang of ragamuffins. . . . These dis- 
gusting holes of villages only added zest to the 
pleasure of the scenery, — a pleasure not inferior 
and not unlike that of looking upon the face of 
a beautiful woman. In many respects our own 
scenery is far beyond it ; but I cannot say that 
I have ever looked with more delight on any of 
our New England mountains and streams than 
upon these of Sicily. The novelty of the sight, 
and the ruined fortresses on the highest crags, 
add much to the effect. . . . 

I went to the museum of Prince Boscari, a 



78 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

valuable collection of antiquities, etc. In the 
midst of a hall, surrounded by precious frag- 
ments of statues and broken pottery, lay the 
skeleton of a Chippeway birch canoe. I wel- 
comed it as a countryman and an old friend. 

I bought some specimens of lava and amber of 
a couple of rascals who asked twice their value, 
and abated it at once when I refused to buy. 

I went to see an opera of Bellini — a native, 
I have heard, of Catania. . . . Lopez had a 
friend waiting for him here — a light-hearted 
and lively young Spaniard whose youthful ec- 
centricities sat as easily and gracefully upon 
him as awkwardly upon old Mateo. When we 
set out on our return, il mio amico, as Lopez 
called him, was rattling away incessantly, and 
imitating every dog, hog, or jackass we met. 

We had a sort of caleche. Besides the driver, 
a small boy ran along by our side, or clung be- 
hind, ready to do what offices might be required 
of him. A still smaller one was stowed away in 
a net, slung between the wheels where he kept 
a constant eye on the baggage. The larger one 
employed himself in tying knots in the horses' 
tails as he ran along — or he would dart along 
the road before us, clamber on a wall, and sit 
till we came by, when he would spring down 
with a shout and run on again. . . . 

The women of this country are not handsome. 
You see groups of them about the stone door- 
ways spinning twine, with their hair drawn back 
in the fashion represented in the portraits of our 
grandmothers. 

We stopped at night at Giardini. The " pa- 



EUROPE 79 

drone " showed us with great complacency the 
register of his house, which, he said, contained 
the recommendations of the guests who had 
honored him with their company. One man's 
" recommendation " warned all travelers that 
the padrone's beds were full of fleas; another's 
that nothing in the house was fit to eat, etc. The 
importunate padrone could not read English. . . . 



CHAPTER IX 

IN SICILY 

The Church of the Benedictines is the noblest 
edifice I have seen. This and others not unlike 
it have impressed me with new ideas of the 
Catholic religion. Not exactly, for I reverenced 
it before as the religion of generations of brave 
and great men. but now I honor it for itself. 
They are mistaken who sneer at its ceremonies 
as a mere mechanical force : they have a power- 
ful and salutary effect on the mind. Those who 
have witnessed the services in this Benedictine 
church, and deny what I say. must either be 
singularly stupid and insensible by nature, or 
rendered so by prejudice. 

Saturday. I recall what I said of the beauty 
of the Sicilian women — so far. at least, as con- 
cerns those of high rank. This is a holyday. 
They are all abroad, in carriages and on foot. 
One passed me in the church of the Capuchin 
convent, with the black eye. the warm rich cheek, 
and the bright glance that belong to southern 
climates. They are beautiful beyond all else. 

Sunday. Took leave of the hospitable family 
of Consul Payson with much regret, and went 
off to the steamer Palermo, bound for Palermo. 
I found her completely surrounded by boats. 



IN SICILY 81 

wedged close together ; friends were kissing their 
adieus, and boatmen cursing. The delicacy of 
sentiment expressed in the Italian national oath 
is admirable — they rival the Spaniards in that 
matter, — " Arcades ambo ; id est, blackguards 
both." At length visitors were warned off, the 
boats dispersed, scattering from a common centre, 
in all directions ; a man screamed the names of 
the passengers, by way of roll-call ; and among 
the rest the illustrious one of Signore Park-a- 
man ; and we got under weigh. It was late at 
night. We passed the long array of bright 
lights from the fine buildings along the quay 
of Messina, — could just discern the mountains 
behind the town, indistinct in the darkness, like 
thunder-clouds, — left a long train of phosphoric 
light behind us, as we steered down between 
Scylla and Charybdis, and in half an hour were 
fairly out on the Sicilian Sea. The ghost of de- 
parted perils still lingers about the scene of 
Ulysses' submarine adventures ; an apology for 
a whirlpool on one side — still bearing the name 
of Scylla — and an insignificant shoal on the 
other. I thought as we passed, and the moon 
made a lono- stream of liarht on the water, that it 
would be an adventure worth encountering, to 
be cast away in that place, — but my unwonted 
classical humor was of very short duration ; for, 
going below, I found a cabin full of seasick 
wretches, which attractive spectacle banished all 
recollection of Virgil and Homer. I was doomed 
to lie all night a witness to their evolutions ; a 
situation not many degrees more desirable than 
being yourself a sufferer. . . . 



82 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Wednesday. I have just arranged an expedi- 
tion to Girgenti, at the southern point of the 
island. Traveling in Sicily is no joke, especially 
at this season. I engaged a man named Luigi to 
furnish three mules, supplies of provisions, cook- 
ing apparatus, an attendant, and thus to pilot 
me round the island, paying himself all tavern 
reckonings and buona manos. For this I am to 
give him four dollars a day. I thus avoid all 
hazard of being imposed upon, or robbed, for 
I shall have scarce any money with me. Luigi 
is perfectly familiar with the island ; has, more- 
over, the reputation of an honest man, notwith- 
standing which I follow Mr. Marston's advice in 
making him sign a written agreement. I have 
laid it down as an inviolable rule to look on 
everybody here as a rascal of the first water, till 
he has shown himself by undeniable evidence to 
be an honest man. 

Giuseppe has been with me as a servant of 
late. The chief fault with him was his continu- 
ally stopping to kiss some of his acquaintances 
in the street. He seems to know everybody, un- 
derstands perfectly how to cheat everybody, has 
astonishing promptness and readiness for all 
kinds of service. " It is 'trange, Mister Park-a- 
man," he modestly remarked the other day, "that 
I cannot go nowhere, but what all the people 
seem to like-a me, and be good friends with me." 
He is vain as a turkey-cock — dresses infinitely 
better than I ever did. He is a great coward, 
trembling continually with fear of robbers in all 
our rides. The Sicilian robbers, by the way, are 
a great humbug. When I engaged Giuseppe I 



IN SICILY 83 

offered him half a dollar a day for wages. " No, 
Mist'r Park-a-man, I no take-a wages at all. 
When you go away, you niake-a me a present, 
just as much as you like ; then I feel more bet-* 
ter." So I told him I would make-a him a pre- 
sent of half a dollar a day ; which I did, a mode 
of remuneration more suited to Giuseppe's self- 
importance. 

Thursday, Jan. 18th. All this morning Luigi 
Rannesi was in a fever-heat of preparation. I 
told him to be ready at two ; he came to me at 
twelve announcing that all was ready ; that he 
had engaged mules at Marineo, and that the 
carriage was at the door to take us there. I was 
not prepared for such promptitude. After some 
delay, I got ready too, and we set out. Luigi, a 
diminutive Sicilian with a thin brown face and 
an air of alertness about every inch of him, began 
to jabber Italian with such volubility that I could 
not understand a word. He must needs exhibit 
every article of the provisions he had got ready 
for the journey, extolling the qualities of each, — 
and they deserved all his praises, — and always 
ended by pounding himself on the breast, rolling 
up his eyes, and exclaiming, " Do you think 
Luigi loves money ? No ! Luigi loves honor ! " 
and then launching forth into interminable eulo- 
gies of the country we were going to see, and the 
adventures we should meet there. We stopped 
at night at Marineo, where Luigi provided a 
most sumptuous dinner ; talked and gesticulated, 
half frenzied because he found I could not under- 
stand half he said ; then seized my hand, which 
he dutifully kissed, and left me to my medita- 



84 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

tions. He reappeared, however, bringing a de- 
canter of wine, and a large book of antiquities 
which he had brought for me to read. All this 
% was at his own expense. The terms of his bar- 
gain bound him to nothing else than to keep me 
alive on the road. 

(Castel Termini.) Luigi is a great antiqua- 
rian. He rakes up ancient money at every vil- 
lage as he goes along. His antiquarian skill is 
a passport to introduce him any where ; to the 
nobles and princes, who are not always, however, 
such dignified personages as would appear from 
their titles. I went with him to-night to the 
house of a judge, who produced a bottle of 
rosolio and showed me a grotto in his garden 
which he had stuck all over with specimens of 
the Sicily minerals. I then went with him to a 
" conversazione," where some dozen people were 
playing cards. They looked at the " signore 
Americano," as the judge introduced me to them, 
with great curiosity, and at last left their game 
and clustered round me, very curious to know 
something of the place I came from. I talked to 
them for some time in a most original style of 
Italian ; but getting tired of being lionized in 
such a manner, I bade them good-night and went 
back to the albergo. 

I went to visit the famous sulphur works not 
far from these places. In the shaft I entered 
the rock was solid sulphur — scarce any mixture 
of foreign ingredients. As we rode away, a noble 
prospect of volcanic mountains lay off on our 
right. Soon after the mule-track became a good 
road. A carriage from Caltanisetta passed us, 



IN SICILY 85 

belonging to some English travelers who had 
made a wide detour for the sake of a road. We 
saw at last the battlements and church spires of 
Girgenti, crowning a high hill before us, and had 
occasional glimpses of the sea through the valleys. 
Approaching the hillf we found a deep and shad- 
owed valley intervening. Luigi left the road and 
descended into it by a wretched mule-track. 
Flocks of goats passed on the road above us, 
mules and asses loaded with their panniers came 
down from the city. One of his fits of enthusi- 
asm had taken possession of Luigi. He began 
to lash his mule and drive him along over sand 
and rocks at such a rate that I thought him mad, 
till he told me that it was necessary to get to 
Girgenti before the Englishmen. " Corragio ! 
my brave mule ! Corragio, signore," he shouted, 
" we shall be the victors ! " At that he drove 
full speed up the steep hill toward the gate. 
Nothing would stop him. He leaped over ditches, 
scrambled through mud and stones, shouting 
" Corragio " at the top of his lungs. At last 
an insuperable gully brought him up short. He 
clapped his hand to his forehead, exclaiming, 
" Santissima Maria ! " in a tone of wrath and 
despair, then recovered his spirits and dashed off 
in another direction. We succeeded. When we 
got to the top the carriage was quarter of a mile 
off, and Luigi shouted " Vittoria ! " as he rode 
into the gate, as much elated as if he had accom- 
plished some great achievement. It was a festa 
day. All the people in the crowded streets and 
in the little square wore white caps. They were 
a hardy and athletic race — their faces, their 



86 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

short strong necks, their broad and prominent 
chests, were all burnt to a dark ruddy brown. 

(Girgenti.) Luigi brings me pockets full of 
ancient money and seems greatly astonished at 
my indifference. As for himself he is rabid. He 
dodges into every house and shop, inquiring for 
" antica moneta," stops contadini at work with 
the same question ; he has scraped together an 
enormous bagful for which he pays scarce any- 
thing, perfectly familiar as he is with its true 
value, and with the u costumi del paese," as he 
says, the customs of the country. His enthusi- 
asm embraces every object, far and wide. He 
raves of love on the road — tells how he eloped 
with his wife — sings love songs, then falls into 
the martial vein, shouts " Corragio," defies the 
wind, rain, and. torrents. He enters into all my 
plans with the most fervid zeal, leaving me 
nothing to do. Every night he comes upstairs 
bringing all kinds of dresses and utensils of the 
people for me to look at. Sometimes he comes 
in with a handful of old coins, telling me with a 
chuckle that he had bought them for " pochis- 
simo," kissing them repeatedly in the exultation 
of a good bargain. I have lived most sumptu- 
ously ever since I have been with him. He puts 
the whole inn into a ferment, rakes the town to 
find the best of everything, and waits on table 
with an eulogium of every dish. " Ah ! signore," 
he repeats, " do you think Luigi loves money ? 
No, Luigi loves honor." He has something to 
give to every beggar he meets. In short, the 
fellow is a jewel, and shall be my particular 
friend henceforward. 



IN SICILY 87 

At the English consul's I met a blind trav- 
eler, a Mr. Holeman, who has been over Siberia, 
New Holland, and other remote regions, for the 
most part alone, and written seven volumes of 
his travels. Traveling, he told me, was a passion 
with him. He could not sit at home. I walked 
home with him through the streets, admiring his 
indomitable energy. I saw him the next morn- 
ing sitting on his mule, with the guide he had 
hired, — his strong frame, his manly English 
face, his gray beard and mustaches, and his 
sightless eyeballs gave him a noble appearance 
in the crowd of wondering Sicilians about him. 

From Girgenti our course lay westward to a 
village called Mont' Allegro. . . . 

Luigi came up in the evening to hold " un 
discorso " with me, according to his custom. He 
was in his usual state of excitement. He takes 
a glass of wine in his hand, " Viva 1' onore, sig- 
norino mio ! " rolling up his eyes and flourishing 
his hands, " viva Bacco ; viva Dio ; viva il con- 
solo Americano ! " and so on, the finale being a 
seizure and kissing of my hand ; after which he 
inquires if I shall want him, looks about to see 
that all is right, kisses my hand again, and goes 
off. 

One of Luigi' s dignified acquaintances in this 
place was the Marchese Giacomo, a nobleman of 
great wealth and a determined virtuoso. Luigi 
called on him with an offering of coins, and re- 
turned with an invitation to his " signore " to 
visit the Marchese and see his pictures. He had 
a most admirable picture-gallery — among the 
rest was an original of Guido. He kindly in- 



88 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

vited me to dine with him, but Luigi's care had 
supplied me a plentiful meal already. So much 
for one specimen of a Sicilian nobleman. I saw 
one or two more of nearly the same stamp at a 
conversazione. The next morning I found Luigi 
at the albergo, sitting over a bottle of wine with 
a large, fat, sleepy -looking man, in rather a 
dingy coat, whom on my entering he slapped on 
the shoulder, " Ecco, signore, mio amico il ba- 
rone ; un brav' uomo," etc., running on with a long 
string of praises of his friend the baron, at which 
this extraordinary specimen of a noble kept 
shaking his large head in modest denial. . . . 

The way was enlivened by the edifying sin- 
gularities of the muleteer Michele, who walked 
along talking without intermission for an hour 
together, though no one listened or replied. He 
interrupted his discourse only to belabor his 
mule and curse him in Sicilian. When we came 
to a steep place, he would take a firm hold of 
the beast's tail with one hand, while he bela- 
bored him with a rope's end that he held in the 
other, and thus they would scramble up to- 
gether. Where the mud was more than a foot 
deep Michele would place both hands on the 
mule's rump and vault, with a sort of grunt, 
upon his back : wriggle himself about for a while 
to find a comfortable seat, and then burst forth 
with some holy canticle in praise of a saint. 

Just after leaving the ruins of Selinuntum 
we were struggling along in the mud of a lane 
between rows of cork-trees and aloes, when Mi- 
chele suddenly set up a yowling like a tom-cat, 
— stopped in the midst of a note to expostulate 



IN SICILY 89 

with his mule, — and then proceeded in a more 
dismal tone than before. Luigi clapped his hands 
and shouted, " Bravo ! compare Michele, belli- 
sima ! " at which the gratified Michele redoubled 
his exertions, and squalled at the top of his 
throat, putting his hand to the side of his mouth 
to increase the volume of sound. A young con- 
tadino who was wading along on an ass at a little 
distance behind was seized with a fit of emula- 
tion, and set up a counter howl to one of the airs 
peculiar to the contadini. I cried bravo to this 
new vocalist, while Luigi cried bella and bellis- 
sima to the exertions of Michele. Michele jogged 
along on his mule, the tassel of his woolen cap 
flapping ; while Luigi twisted himself in his sad- 
dle to see how I relished the entertainment, re- 
marking with a grin, " Canta Michele," Michele 
is singing. 

Marsala, as everybody knows, is famous for 
its wine. For travelers there is little to see. . . . 



CHAPTER X 

NAPLES AND ROME 

I have seen my last of Sicily. I bade adieu to 
Luigi, who insisted on my receiving a number 
of valuable ancient coins, and would have given 
me an hundred if I had let him have his own 
way — took leave of the Marstons and Gardi- 
ners — had my baggage carried on board the 
Palermo by three facchini, and followed it my- 
self. 

The next morning the famous Bay of Naples 
looked wretched and dismal enough under the 
influences of an easterly storm, through which 
Vesuvius was just visible. I went to the Hotel 
de Rome, an excellent house, with a restaurant 
beneath where you get and pay for precisely 
what you want, an arrangement far better than 
a table d'hote. 

I spent the first day at the Royal Museum, 
where I could not determine which I liked best, 
the Hercules Farnese or the Venus of Praxi- 
teles. 

I met, at the house of Mr. Rogers, Mr. Theo- 
dore Parker and Mr. Farnam from Philadelphia. 
I had already met Mr. Parker at the Hotel de 
Rome. Yesterday we went up Vesuvius together. 

. . . We got some of the famous Lacrimce 



NAPLES AND ROME 91 

Christi wine at a house half way down. We 
reached Naples at three, where the outskirts of 
the town were deserted, with the exception of a 
few miserable old men and women sitting in the 
doorways. It was Sunday, the great day of the 
carnival. King Ferdinand, however, sets his face 
against the carnival, which for several years has 
been a mere nothing at Naples. This year, in 
consideration of the distress of tradesmen, he 
has consented, much against his inclination, to 
make a fool of himself. This was the day ap- 
pointed for a grand masked procession, in which 
the king and his ministers were to pelt his sub- 
jects with sugar-plums, and be pelted in return. 
There was a great crowd as we entered the 
square upon the Toledo — the main street of 
Naples. While we were slowly driving through 
it, the head of the procession appeared. First 
came a dragon about fifty feet long, with his 
back just visible above the throng of heads, as 
if he was swimming in the water. He was drawn 
by a long train of horses. Five or six masked 
noblemen were on his back pelting the crowd 
and the people in the galleries of the houses on 
each side. Then came a sort of car, full of bears, 
cats, and monkeys, all flinging sugar-plums. The 
horses of this vehicle were appropriately ridden 
by jackasses. Then came a long train of car- 
riages, which we joined. The crowd was enor- 
mous. The Toledo was one wide river of heads, 
the procession slowly moving down on one side 
and returning on the other. Along the middle, 
a line of dragoons sat motionless, with drawn 
swords, on their horses. Mrs. P. was hit on 



92 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

the nose by a formidable sugar-plum flung by a 
vigorous hand from one of the balconies. She 
was in great trouble, but there was no such thing 
as retreat. We got our full share. Mr. Farnam's 
dignity was disturbed. Mr. Parker had a glass 
of his spectacles broken. I alone escaped unin- 
jured. At length the royal carriage appeared. 
Ferdinand — a gigantic man, taller and heavier 
than any of his subjects — was flinging sugar- 
plums with hearty good-will, like all the rest. 
As they passed our carriage the royal family 
greeted us with a broadside, which completed 
Mrs. Parker's discomposure. They threw genu- 
ine sugar-plums — the others were quite uneat- 
able. The king wore a black silk dress which 
covered him from head to foot. His face was 
protected by a wire mask. He carried a brass 
machine in his hand to fling sugar-plums with. 
His uncle, his mother, his wife, and all his chief 
noblemen soon appeared, all protected by masks. 
The procession passed several times up and 
down the Toledo, with occasional stoppages. One 
of these happened when the king's carriage was 
not far before us, while directly over against it, on 
the other side of the street, was a triumphal car 
full of noblemen. Instantly there began a battle. 
Ferdinand and the princes sent volley after vol- 
ley against their opponents, who returned it with 
interest. The crowd set up a roar, and made a 
rush for the spoils. There was a genuine battle 
for the sugar-plums that fell between the two 
carriages, pushing, scrambling, shouting, yelling, 
confusion worse confounded, till the dignified 
combatants thought proper to separate. . . . 



NAPLES AND ROME 93 

The remoter and more obscure parts of this 
great city are quite as interesting. Here you 
may see an endless variety of costumes, of the 
women, almost all beautiful and neat. There is 
something particularly attractive about these 
women, who are seldom, however, handsome, 
properly speaking, but there is the devil in their 
bright faces and full rounded forms. Each town 
in the environs has its peculiar costume. 

On Saturday I left Naples for Rome in the 
diligence, with Mr. and Mrs. Parker. . . . 

At length we got a glimpse of St. Peter's. 
On every side of us were remains of temples, 
aqueducts, and tombs ; Mr. Parker became in- 
spired, and spouted Cicero and Yirgil. Three 
young Romans followed us for a mile, running 
along in their rags, with their dingy peaked hats 
in their hands, constantly exclaiming in a wail- 
ing tone, "JEccelenz, eccelenzf povero miserabile, 
molto di fame ! " — Your excellency, your excel- 
lency, I am a poor miserable devil, very hungry. 

Monday. To-day is one of the great days. Mr. 
P. with his lady and myself went in a carriage 
to see the " show." The streets were crowded 
with maskers of all descriptions, in carriages and 
on foot. A blast of trumpets from the end of 
the Corso was the signal for all the carriages to 
draw up to one side and the crowd to divide, to 
make way for a column of the Pope's soldiers. 
First came the sappers, with beards and mus- 
taches that fell over their chests, shaggy bearskin 
caps and leather aprons. Each carried a broad- 
axe over his shoulder, and his musket slung at 
his back. They were savage and martial-looking 



94 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

fellows. A long train of soldiers followed, with 
a body of cavalry bringing up the rear. So 
much for the Pope's summary measures for 
preserving order. After this the carnival began 
in earnest. 

It was not the solemn sugar-plum foolery of 
Naples, but foolery entered into with right hearti- 
ness and good-will. There were devils of every 
description, from the imp of two feet high to a 
six foot monster with horns and hoofs and tail, 
and a female friend on each arm. There were 
harlequins with wooden swords, or with bladders 
tied to poles, which they beat over the heads of 
all they met ; Pulcinellas, and an endless variety 
of nondescripts. Some of the carriages were 
triumphal cars gayly ornamented, full of mask- 
ers, men and girls, in spangled dresses. Instead 
of sugar-plums, they flung flowers at one an- 
other. Some of the women wore wire masks or 
little vizards, which left the lower part of the 
face bare ; many, however, had no covering at 
all to their faces. Few had any regular beauty 
of features, but there was an expression of heart 
and spirit, and a loftiness, beside, which did not 
shame their birth. They flung their flowers at 
you with the freest and most graceful action 
imaginable. To battle with flowers against a 
laughing and conscious face — showering your 
ammunition thick as the carriage slowly passes 
the balcony — then straining your eyes to catch 
the last glance of the black-eyed witch and the 
last wave of her hand as the crowd closes around 
her, — all this is no contemptible amusement. 

The inferior class of women walked in the 



NAPLES AND ROME 95 

street, very prettily dressed in a laced jacket and 
a white frock that came an inch below the knee. 
Some were disguised as boys, some wore fierce 
mustaches, which set off well enough their spirited 
faces. Hundreds of men were shouting round the 
carriages with flowers for sale. Thus it went on 
for hours, till the report of a cannon gave the sig- 
nal for clearing the Corso for the horse-race. . . . 

So much for my classic "first impressions" of 
Kome ! Yesterday was the 22d of February — 
the birthday of Washington. The Americans 
here must needs get up a dinner, with speeches, 
toasts, etc. It was like a visit home. There they 
sat, slight, rather pale and thin men, not like 
beef-fed and ruddy Englishmen ; very quiet and 
apparently timid ; speaking low to the waiters 
instead of roaring in the imperative tone of John 
Bull. There was not a shadow of that boisterous 
and haughty confidence of manner that you see 
among Englishmen — in fact most of them seemed 
a little green. A General Dix presided and made 
a speech about the repudiation ; the consul, Mr. 
Green, made another excellent speech, so did Dr. 
Howe. Mr. Conrade of Virginia gave us a most 
characteristic specimen of American eloquence, 
and toasted " Washington and Cincinnatus ! 
Patrick Henry and Cicero ! " 

There are numbers of American artists here, 
some of them fine fellows. In fact, it is some con- 
solation, after looking at the thin faces, narrow 
shoulders, and awkward attitudes of the " Yan- 
kees," to remember that in genius, enterprise, and 
courage — nay, in bodily strength — they are a 
full match for the sneering Englishmen. Would 



96 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

that they bore themselves more boldly and confi- 
dently. But a time will come when they may 
meet Europeans on an equal footing. 

Feb. 27th. A weary week of lionizing. I would 
not give a damn for all the churches and ruins in 
Rome — at least, such are my sentiments at pre- 
sent. There is unbounded sublimity in the Coli- 
seum by moonlight, — that cannot be denied, — 
St. Peter's, too, is a miracle in its way ; but I 
would give them all for one ride on horseback 
among the Apennines. 1 

A Virginian named St. Ives, lately converted 
to Catholicism, has been trying to convert me, 
along with some of the Jesuits here. He has 
abandoned the attempt in disgust, telling me that 
I have not logic enough in me to be convinced of 
anything, to which I replied by cursing logic 
and logicians. 

I have now been three or four weeks in Rome, 
have been presented to his Holiness the Pope, 
have visited churches, convents, cemeteries, cata- 
combs, common sewers, including the Cloaca 
Maxima, and ten thousand works of art. This 
will I say of Rome, — that a place on every ac- 
count more interesting, and which has a more 
vivifying and quickening influence on the facul- 
ties, could not be found on the face of the earth, 
or, at least, I should not wish to go to it if it 
could. 1 . . . 

Rome, Friday. Yesterday I went to the Ca- 
puchins for permission to stay there, which was 
refused peremptorily ; but the Passionists told 
me to come again at night, and they would tell 
1 Life of Francis Parkman, p. 192. 



NAPLES AND ROME 97 

me if I could be admitted. I came as directed, 
and was shown a room in the middle of the build- 
ing, which contains hundreds of chambers con- 
nected by long and complicated passages, hung 
with pictures of saints and crucifixes. The monk 
told me that when the bell rang I must leave 
my hat, come out, and join the others, and then, 
displaying some lives of the saints and other holy 
works on the table, he left me to my meditations. 
The room has a hideous bleeding image of Christ, 
a vessel of holy water, and a number of holy 
pictures — a bed, a chair and a table. Also, hung 
against the wall was a " Notice to persons with- 
drawn from the world for spiritual exercises, to 
the end that they may derive all possible profit 
from their holy seclusion." The " Notice " pro- 
hibited going out of the chamber without neces- 
sity ; prohibited also speaking at any time, or 
making any noise whatever, writing also, and 
looking out of the window. It enjoined the 
saying of three Ave Marias, at least, at night, 
also to make your own bed, etc. 

The devil ! thought I, here is an adventure. 
The secret of my getting in so easily was ex- 
plained. There were about thirty Italians re- 
tired from the world, preparing for the General 
Confession, — and even while I was coming to this 
conclusion the bell clanged along the passage, 
and I went out to join the rest. After climbing 
several dark stairs, and descending others, pull- 
ing off their skull-caps to the great images of 
Christ on the landing places, they got into a 
little chapel, and after kneeling to the altar, 
seated themselves. The shutters were closed, 



98 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

and the curtains drawn immediately after ; there 
was a prayer with the responses, and then a ser- 
mon of an hour and a half long, in which the 
monk kept felicitating himself and his hearers 
that they were of the genuine church — little 
thinking that there was a black sheep among his 
flock. The sermon over, we filed off to our 
rooms. In five minutes the bell rang again for 
supper, then we marched off to a conversazione 
in another part of the building, where the in- 
junction of silence was taken off. I told the di- 
recting priest that I was a Protestant. He 
seemed a little startled at first, then insinuated 
a hope that I might be reclaimed from my 
damnable heresy, and said that an American 
had been there before, who had been converted 
— meaning my acquaintance St. Ives. He then 
opened a little battery of arguments upon me, 
after which he left me saying that a lay brother 
would make the rounds to wake us before sunrise. 

The lay brother came in fact, but not before 
I had been waked by a howling procession of 
the Passionists themselves, who passed along 
about midnight. There was a mass, another 
prayer, and another endless sermon, soon after 
which we were summoned to coffee. I observed 
several of the Italians looking hard at me as I 
drank a glass of water instead of coffee, on ac- 
count of my cursed neuralgia. Doubtless they 
were thinking within themselves, How that pious 
man is mortifying the flesh ! 

There was an hour's repose allowed, after 
which came another sermon in the chapel. This 
over, a bell rang for dinner, which was at eleven 



NAPLES AND ROME 99 

in the morning. The hall was on the lower floor 
— very long, high, and dark — with panels of 
oak, and ugly pictures on the walls — narrow 
oaken tables set all round the sides of the place. 
The monks were all there, in their black robes, 
with the emblem of their order on the breast. 
They had their scowling faces, as well they 
might, for their discipline is tremendously strict. 
Before each was placed an earthen bottle of 
wine and a piece of bread, on the bare board. 
Each drew a cup, a knife, fork, and wooden 
spoon from a drawer under the table ; the at- 
tendant lay brothers placed a bowl of singular- 
looking soup before each, and they eat in lugu- 
brious silence. The superior of the order sat at 
the upper end of the hall — a large and power- 
ful man, who looked sterner, if possible, than his 
inferiors. We, who sat at another table, were 
differently served — with rice, eggs, fish, and 
fruit. No one spoke, but from a pulpit above 
a monk read at the top of his lungs from a book 
of religious precepts in that peculiar drawling 
tone which the Catholics employ in their exer- 
cises. There was, apparently, little fructifica- 
tion in the minds of his hearers. The monks eat 
and scowled ; the laymen eat and smiled at 
each other, exchanging looks of meaning, though 
not a word passed between them. There were 
among them men of every age and of various 
conditions, from the field laborer to the gentle- 
man of good birth. The meal concluded with a 
prayer and the growling responses of the Pas- 
sionists, who then filed off through the galleries 
to their dens, looking like the living originals of 



L.oFC. 



100 FRANCIS PARKMAN 






the black pictures that hang along the white- 
washed walls. 

A monk has just been here, trying to convert 
me, but was not so good a hand at argument, or 
sophistry, as the Jesuits. I told him that he 
could do nothing with me, but he persisted, 
clapping his hand on my knee and exclaiming, 
" Ah, figlio, you will be a good Catholic, no 
doubt." There was a queer sort of joviality about 
him. He kept offering me his snuff-box, and 
when he thought he had made a good hit in 
argument, he would wink at me, with a most 
comical expression, as if to say, " you see you 
can't come round me with your heresy." He 
gave over at the ringing of a bell which sum- 
moned us to new readings and lecturings in the 
chapel, after which we were turned out into the 
garden of the convent, where we lounged along 
walks shaded with olives and oleanders. Padre 
Lucca, the directing priest, talked over matters 
of faith to me. He was an exception to the rest 
of the establishment — plump and well-fed, with 
a double chin like a bull-frog, and a most con- 
tented and good-humored countenance. 

After supper to-night some of the Italians 
in the conversazione expressed great sympathy 
for my miserable state of heresy : one of them, 
with true charity, according to his light, said 
that he would pray to the Virgin, who could do 
all things, to show me the truth. The whole 
community assembled to vespers. The dark and 
crowded chapel fairly shook with the din of 
more than a hundred manly voices chanting the 
service. 



NAPLES AND ROME 101 

There is nothing gloomy and morose in the 
religion of these Italians here, no camp-meeting 
long faces. They talk and laugh gayly in the in- 
tervals allowed them for conversation ; but when 
the occasion calls it forth, they speak of religion 
with an earnestness, as well as a cheerfulness, 
that shows that it has a hold on their hearts. 

Saturday. This morning, among the rest, they 
went through the Exercise of the Via Crucis, 
which consists in moving in a body around the 
chapel, where are suspended pictures, fourteen 
in number, representing different scenes in the 
passion of Christ. Before each of these they 
stop, the priest reads the appropriate prayer 
and expressions of contrition from the book, re- 
peats a Pater Noster, etc., and so they make a 
circuit of the whole. I saw the same ceremony, 
on a larger scale, in the Coliseum, without know- 
ing what it was. 

A thin, hollow-eyed father tried to start my 
heresy this morning, but was horrified at the 
enormity of my disbelief ; and when I told him 
that I belonged to a Unitarian family, he rolled 
up his bloodshot eyes in their black sockets, and 
stretched his skinny neck out of his cowl, like a 
turtle basking on a stone in summer. He gave 
me a little brass medal of the Virgin with a 
kind of prayer written on it. This medal he 
begged me to wear round my neck, and to re- 
peat two or three Aves now and then. It was 
by this means, he said, that Ratisbon the Jew 
was converted, not long since ; who, though he 
wore the medal and repeated the Aves merely to 
get rid of the importunities of a Catholic friend, 



102 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

yet nevertheless was favored with a miraculous 
vision of the Virgin, whereupon he fell on his 
knees and was joined to the number of the Faith- 
ful. I told the monk that I would wear the medal 
if he wished me to, but should not repeat the 
Aves ; so I have it now round my neck, greatly 
to his satisfaction. [This medal Parkman kept 
all his life.] Miracles, say all the Catholics here, 
happen frequently nowadays. The other day a 
man was raised to life who had just died in con- 
sumption, and now is walking the streets in com- 
plete health ! 

These Italians have come to the seclusion of 
this convent in order that their minds may not 
be distracted by contact with the world, and that 
the religious sentiments may grow up unimpeded 
and receive all possible nutriment from the con- 
stant exercises in which they are engaged. It is 
partly, also, with the intention of preparing them 
for the General Confession. It is only for a few 
days in the year that any are here. Their " ex- 
ercises " are characteristic of the Church. The 
forms of prayer are all written down ; they read, 
repeat, and sing. Very little time is allowed them 
for private examinations and meditations, and 
even in these they are directed by a printed card 
hung in each of the rooms, and containing a list 
of the subjects on which they ought to examine 
themselves, together with a form of contrition to 
be repeated by them. The sermons and readings 
are full of pictures of Christ's sufferings, exhorta- 
tions to virtue, etc., but contain not a syllable of 
doctrine. One of the first in the printed list of 
questions which the self -examiner is to ask him- 



NAPLES AND ROME 103 

self is, " Have I ever dared to inquire into the 
mysteries of the Faith ? " 

Sunday. This is Palm Sunday, the first day of 
the famous Settimana Santa, — the Holy Week. 
I determined to get out of the convent and see 
what was going on. The day and night previous 
I had worn the medal, but had no vision of the 
Virgin, — at least of Santissima Maria. Padre 
Lucca was unfeignedly sorry to have me go with 
unimpaired prospects of damnation. He said he 
still had hopes of me; and taking the kindest 
leave of me, gave me a book of Catholic devo- 
tions, which I shall certainly keep in remem- 
brance of a very excellent man. He looked at 
the book I had been reading the night before, 
and expressed his approbation, — it was a life of 
Blessed Paul of the Cross, detailing among other 
matters how the apostle hated women with a holy 
and religious hatred, justly regarding them as 
types of the devil, and fountains of unbounded 
evil to the sons of men ; and how, when women 
were near, he never raised his eyes from the 
ground, but continually repeated Pater Nosters 
that the malign influence might be averted. 

When I got into the fresh air I felt rather 
glad to be free of the gloomy galleries and cells, 
which, nevertheless, contain so much to be ad- 
mired. 1 . . . 

I heard it computed that there are forty thou- 
sand strangers in Rome, which must, however, 
be a great exaggeration. The English are the 
most numerous, esteemed, and beloved as usual. 

1 Cf. " A Convent at Rome," Harper's New Monthly Maga- 
zine, August, 1890. 



104 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

One of them, standing in St. Peter's, before the 
ceremony yesterday, civilly exclaimed, " How long 
does this damned Pope expect us to stand here 
waiting for him ! " A priest who spoke English 
reminded him that, since he had come to Rome, 
it was hoped that he would conform to the usages, 
or at least refrain from insulting the feelings of 
those around. The Englishman answered by an 
insolent stare ; then turning his back, he said, 
" The English own Rome ! " 

FRANK TO HIS MOTHER. 

Rome, April 5, '44. 

Dear Mother, — ... We are in the midst 
of the fooleries of Holy Week. To-night the 
Pope took a mop, and washed the high altar, in 
the presence of some ten thousand people. . . . 
I have been spending a few days in a convent of 
the monks called Passionists. ... I find that 
though I am very well indeed in other respects, 
there has not been any great change in the dif- 
ficulty that brought me out here. ... I have 
resolved to go to Paris and see Dr. Louis, the 
head of his profession in the world, and see if he 
can do anything for me. ... I have been a per- 
fect anchorite here, have given up wine, etc., 
and live at present on 40 cents a day for pro- 
visions — so if I do not thrash the enemy at 
last, it will not be my fault. . . . Here are four 
thousand English in Rome and they are tolerably 
hated by the Italians, while we sixty or seventy 
Americans seem, I am happy to say, liked and 
esteemed everywhere. . . . 

Yours, Frank. 



CHAPTER XI 

FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 

The next day I left Rome for Florence, in the 
diligence — and left it with much regret, and 
a hope to return. A young American named 
Marquand went with me. . . . 

I went to the studio of Powers the sculptor, a 
noble-looking fellow and a wonderful artist. I 
have seen Florence — that is, I have had a glance 
at everything there, but one might stay with 
pleasure for months. Its peculiar architecture 
and its romantic situation make it striking 
enough at first sight, but the interest increases, 
instead of diminishing. It is impossible to have 
seen enough of its splendid picture galleries, gar- 
dens, and museums. 

On Wednesday I left Florence, unsatisfied, 
but unable to stay longer. After all, I shall not 
see Granada — at least for some years, thanks 
to the cursed injury that brought me to Europe ; 
for as I find no great improvement, I judge it 
best to see what a French doctor can do for me, 
instead of running about Spain. 

At ten in the evening we left Parma. At five 
in the morning we were at Piacenza. Here we 
stopped an hour or two. Here again the strik- 
ing difference between the towns of northern 



106 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

and southern Italy was manifested. The people 
looked as grave and solemn as the brick fronts 
of the palaces and churches. . . . 

We crossed the Po, by a wretched bridge of 
boats, and entered Lombardy and the domains 
of Austria. The black eagle of Austria was 
painted above the guard-house, on the farther 
bank, where a dozen sullen-looking soldiers loi- 
tered about. There was a barrack of them near 
the custom-house, where we must stop an hour 
and a half to be searched, and to pay the fellows 
for doing it. After that we rode all day through 
a beautiful and fertile country, passing through 
Lodi, the scene of Bonaparte's victory, till at 
night we entered Milan, saturated with dust. 

As for the city, it is well enough. The people 
are different in appearance, in manners, in lan- 
guage, and in habits, from the southern Italians. 
The women are all out sunning themselves ; 
whole flights of them came out of the Cathedral, 
with little black veils flung over their heads, and 
mass books in their hands. Their faces and fig- 
ures are round and rich — of the fiery black eye 
of Rome I have seen nothing; their eyes are 
blue and soft, and have rather a drowsy meek 
expression, and they look excessively modest. 

This morning, when the whole city was quiet, 
the shops shut in honor of Sunday, the people 
issuing from the Cathedral, gentlemen walking 
listlessly about, and porters and contadini sitting 
idle at the edge of the sidewalks. There was a 
group of gentlemen taking their coffee under 
awnings in front of each of the caffes on the 
piazza before the Cathedral. This vagabond way 



FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 107 

of breakfasting and seeing the world at the 
same time is very agreeable. There is no place 
where you can be more independent than in one 
of these cities ; when you are hungry there is 
always a restaurant and a dinner at a moment's 
notice, when you are thirsty there is always a 
caffe at hand. If you are sleepy, your room 
awaits you, a dozen sneaking waiters are ready 
at your bidding, and glide about like shadows to 
do what you may require, in hope of your shil- 
ling when you go away. But give me Ethan 
Crawford, or even Tom, in place of the whole 
race of waiters and garcons. I would ask their 
pardon for putting them in the same sentence, 
if they were here. 

A funeral procession filed into the Cathedral, 
each priest, layman, woman, and child with an 
enormous wax candle in hand. The noble chapel, 
at the left extremity of the transept, was hung 
with black for the occasion — the coffin was 
placed in the midst, and the ceremonies were 
performed. The priests seemed not fairly awake. 
One fat bull-frog of a fellow would growl out 
of his throat his portion of the holy psalmody, 
interrupting himself in some interesting conver- 
sation with his neighbor, and resuming it again 
as soon as the religious office was performed. 
Another would gape and yawn in the midst of 
his musical performances, another would walk 
about looking at the people, or the coffin, or the 
kneeling women, singing meanwhile with the 
most supreme indifference and content on his 
fat countenance. I could imagine the subject of 
their conversation, as they walked out in a 



108 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

double file, leaving the coffin to the care of the 
proper officials, after they had grunted a con- 
cluding anthem over it. " Well, we 've fixed this 
fellow's soul for him. It was a nasty job ; but 
it 's over now. Come ! won't you take something 
to drink ? " [The foregoing quotation and some 
others that I shall make to indicate the ginger 
and spice of his character, must be read with 
the recollection that they are the hasty jottings 
of a young man who was writing in his private 
notebook, never expecting them to be seen. If 
we were to misinterpret these sallies unfairly 
even for a moment, we should do injustice to the 
reasonableness of his character. Had he spoken 
then, his smile would have dispelled any misun- 
derstanding.] 

I used to like priests, and take my hat off and 
make a low bow, half in sport and half in ear- 
nest, whenever I met them, but I have got to 
despise the fellows. Yet I have met admirable 
men among them ; and have always been treated 
by them all with the utmost civility and atten- 
tion. 

I write on the Lake of Como, with three 
women, a boy, and four men looking over my 
shoulder, but they cannot read English. 

I have seen nothing, at home or abroad, more 
beautiful than this Jake. It reminds me of Lake 
George — the same extent, the same figure, the 
same crystal purity of waters, the same wild 
and beautiful mountains on either side. But the 
comparison will not go farther. Here are a hun- 
dred palaces and villages scattered along the 
water's edge and up the declivities. . . . All 



FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 109 

here is like a finished picture ; even the wildest 
rocks seem softened in the air of Italy. Give me 
Lake George, and the smell of the pine and 
fir! 

(Andeer.) I stopped here, and will stay here 
several days. Nothing could surpass the utter 
savageness of the scenery that you find by tracing 
up some of the little streams that pour down 
on all sides to join the Rhine — not a trace of 
human hand — it is as wild as the back-forests 
at home. The mountains, too, wear the same 
aspect. 

. . . Here was a change, with a vengeance, 
from the Italian beauties of the Lake of Como ! 
I sat on the rock, fancying myself again in the 
American woods with an Indian companion, but 
as I rose to go away the hellish beating of my 
heart w T arned me that no more such expeditions 
were in store for me — for the present, at least ; 
but if I do not sleep by the camp-fire again, it 
shall be no fault of mine. . . . 

(Zurich.) The Germans lighted their pipes 
with their flint and steel, and, stretching out 
their legs and unbuttoning their coats, disposed 
themselves to take their ease. Here was none of 
the painful dignity which an Englishman thinks 
it incumbent upon him to assume throughout 
his travels — no kneepans aching with the strain 
of tight strapped pantaloons, no neck half severed 
by the remorseless edge of a starched dickey. . . . 

The journey to Paris occupies two days. Yes- 
terday morning, looking from the window, I saw 
an ocean of housetops stretching literally to the 
very horizon. We entered the gate, but rode for 



110 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

nearly an hour through the streets before we 
reached the diligence office. Then I went to the 
Tuileries, the Palais Royal, the Boulevard des 
Italiens, and the Place Vendome. " Let envious 
Englishmen sneer as they will," I thought, " this 
is the ' Athens of Modern Europe.' " 

I had called on my uncle [Mr. Samuel Park- 
man], and found him not at home. He called on 
me with the same fortune, but left a note direct- 
ing me to be at a celebrated cafe at a certain 
time, where he was to be distinguished by a 
white handkerchief in his hand. I found him 
there, and went with him to a ball at the Champs 
Elysees. 

Boulogne, May 16th. I have been a fortnight 
in Paris, and seen it as well as it can be seen in 
a fortnight. Under peculiarly favorable circum- 
stances, too ; for it was the great season of balls 
and gayeties, and I had a guide, moreover, who 
knows Paris from top to bottom, within and 
without. . . . 

When I got to London, I thought I had been 
there before. There, in flesh and blood, was the 
whole host of characters that figure in Pickwick. 
Every species of cockney was abroad in the dark 
and dingy looking streets, all walking with their 
heads stuck forward, their noses turned up, their 
chin pointing down, their knee-joints shaking, 
as they shuffled along with a gait perfectly ludi- 
crous, but indescribable. The hackney coachmen 
and cabmen, with their peculiar phraseology, the 
walking advertisements in the shape of a boy 
completely hidden between two placards, and a 
hundred others seemed so many incarnations 



FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 111 

of Dickens' characters. A strange contrast to 
Paris ! The cities are no more alike than the 
" dining room " of London and the elegant res- 
taurant of Paris, the one being a quiet dingy 
establishment where each guest is put into a box 
and supplied with porter, beef, potatoes, and 
plum-pudding. Red-faced old gentlemen of three 
hundred weight mix their " brandy go " and read 
the " Times." In Paris the tables are set in ele- 
gant galleries and saloons, and among the trees 
and flowers of a garden, and here resort coats cut 
by the first tailors and bonnets of the latest mode, 
whose occupants regale their delicate tastes on 
the lightest and most delicious viands. The wait- 
ers spring from table to table as noiselessly as 
shadows, prompt at the slightest sign ; a lady, 
elegantly attired, sits within an arbor to preside 
over the whole. Dine at these places, then go to 
a London " dining room " — swill porter and de- 
vour roast beef ! 

I went immediately to Catlin's Indian Gallery. 
It is in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. There was 
a crowd around the door ; servants in livery 
waiting ; men with handbills of the exhibition 
for sale ; cabmen, boys, and pickpockets. I was 
rejoicing in Mr. Catlin's success, when the true 
point of attraction caught my eye, in the shape 
of a full-length portrait of Major Tom Thumb, 
the celebrated American dwarf, who it seems 
occupies the Indian Gallery for the present. I 
paid my shilling and went in. The little wretch 
was singing Yankee Doodle with a voice like a 
smothered mouse, and prancing about on a table, 
a la Jeffrey Hudson, with a wooden sword in his 



112 FKANCIS PARKMAN 

hand ; a great crowd of cockneys and gentlemen 
and ladies were contemplating his evolutions. 
But for the Indian Gallery, its glory had de- 
parted ; it had evidently ceased to be a lion. 
The portraits of the chiefs, dusty and faded, hung 
round the walls, and above were a few hunting 
shirts and a bundle or two of arrows ; but the 
rich and invaluable collection I had seen in Bos- 
ton had disappeared, and no one thought of look- 
ing at the poor remains of that great collection 
that were hung about the walls. Catlin had done 
right. He would not suffer the fruits of his 
six years' labor and danger to rot in the damp- 
ness to gratify a few miserable cockneys, so has 
packed up the best part of his trophies. . . . 

St. Paul's, which the English ridiculously com- 
pare to St. Peter's, is without exception the dir- 
tiest and gloomiest church I have been in yet. 
I went up to the ball at the top of the cupola, 
whence the prospect is certainly a most wonder- 
ful one. . . . 

Walk out in the evening, and keep a yard or 
two behind some wretched clerk, who with nose 
elevated in the air, elbows stuck out at right 
angles, and the pewter knob of his cane playing 
upon his under lip, is straddling his bow legs 
over the sidewalk with a most majestic air. Get 
behind him, and you see his dignity greatly dis- 
turbed. First he glances over one of his narrow 
shoulders, then over the other, then he edges off 
to the other side of the walk, and turns his va- 
cant lobster eyes full upon you, then he passes 
his hand over his coat-tail, and finally he draws 
forth from his pocket the object of all this solici- 



FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 113 

tude in the shape of a venerable and ragged cot- 
ton handkerchief, which he holds in his hand to 
keep it out of harm's way. I have been thus 
taken for a pickpocket more than a dozen times 
to-night, not the less so for being respectably 
dressed, for these gentry are the most dashy men 
on the Strand. 

There is an interesting mixture of vulgarity 
and helplessness in the swarm of ugly faces you 
see in the streets — meagre, feeble, ill-propor- 
tioned, or not proportioned at all, the blockheads 
must needs put on a game air and affect the 
" man of the world " in their small way. I have 
not met one handsome woman yet, though I have 
certainly walked more than fifty miles since I 
have been here, and have kept my eyes open. 
To be sure, the weather has been raw and chill 
enough to keep beauty at home. Elsewhere Eng- 
glishmen are tall, strong, and manly ; here, the 
crowd that swarms through the streets are like 
the outcasts of a hospital. . . . 

I spent seven or eight days in London. On 
the eighth day I went up the river to Richmond 
in a steamboat, with a true cockney pleasure 
party on board, whose evolutions were very en- 
tertaining. . . . 

I got into the cars one night — having sent my 
trunks to Liverpool — and found myself in the 
morning at Darlington, nearly three hundred 
miles distant. Thence I took stage for Carlisle, 
famous in Border story. 

I went away at four in the morning for Ab- 
botsford. We were in the region where one 
thinks of nothing but of Scott, and of the themes 



114 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

which he has rendered so familiar to the whole 
world. The Cheviot was on our right — the 
Teviot hills before us. The wind came down 
from them raw and cold, and the whole sky was 
obscured with stormy clouds. I thought as we 
left the town of the burden of one of his ballads : 
" The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall." It was 
little applicable now. The ancient fortification 
looked sullen and cheerless as tottering battle- 
ments and black crumbling walls, beneath a sky 
as dark and cold as themselves, could make it. I 
was prepared for storms and a gloomy day, but 
soon the clouds parted and the sun broke out 
clear over the landscape. The dark heathery 
sides of Teviot — the numberless bright rapid 
streams that came from the different glens, and 
the woods of ash, larch, and birch that followed 
their course, and grew on the steeper declivities 
of the hills — never could have appeared to more 
advantage. Esk and Liddel, Yarrow, the Teviot, 
Minto Crag, Ettrick Forest, Branksome Castle, 
— these and more likewise we passed before we 
reached the Tweed and saw Abbotsford on its 
banks among the forests planted by Scott him- 
self. I left my luggage at the inn at Galashiels, 
telling the landlord that I was going away, and 
might return at night, or might not. I visited 
Abbotsford, Melrose, and Dryburgh — and con- 
sider the day better spent than the whole four 
months I was in Sicily and Italy. I slept at Mel- 
rose, and returned to Galashiels in the morning. 
I like the Scotch — I like the country and 
everything in it. The Liverpool packet will 
not wait, or I should stay long here, and take a 



FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 115 

trout from every " burrtie " in the Cheviot. The 
scenery has been grossly belied by Irving and 
others. It is wild and beautiful. I have seen 
none more so. There is wood enough along the 
margins of the streams (which areas transparent 
as our own) ; the tops of the hills alone are bare. 
The country abounds in game, pheasants, moor- 
cock, curlew, and rabbits. . . . 

I walked up Arthur's Seat, passing the spot 
where Jeanie Deans had her interview with her 
sister's seducer, and, when I arrived at the top, 
looking [sic] down on the site of her father's 
cottage. Under the crags here is the place where 
Scott and James Ballantyne used to sit when 
boys and read and make romances together. 
Edinburgh, half wrapped in smoke, lies many 
hundred feet below, seen beyond the ragged pro- 
jecting edge of Salisbury Crag, the castle rising 
obscurely in the extreme distance. . . . 

Frank was obliged to hurry off to Liverpool, 
where he went aboard the packet Acadia, and 
after an uneventful voyage, during which he 
amused himself with a little satire upon some 
fellow passengers, notably my lord bishop of 
Newfoundland, returned safely home. 



CHAPTER XII 

A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 

Feank landed about June 20th, took his degree 
of A. B., and attended a senior class supper, at 
which we do not know whether he used the 
temperance ticket for $2.12J, or the wine ticket 
for $4.62J. Off he went again in the beginning 
of July with a little green notebook about as 
large as a porte-monnaie in his pocket, which 
he brought back filled with notes, descriptions, 
memoranda, reflections. Conscious of his bach- 
elorhood in arts, of a philosophic superiority to 
youth and folly, and dignified by a sense of a 
horizon stretching from Palermo to Edinburgh, 
he begins in fragmentary, critical mood : — 

The traveler in Europe. Art, nature, history 
combine. In America art has done her best to 
destroy nature — association, nothing. Her for- 
mer state. Her present matter of fact. . . . 

July 4, '44. The celebration at Concord. The 
admirable good humor of the people in the cars 
during some very vexatious delays was remark- 
able. Some young men sang songs and amused 



A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 117 

themselves with jokes, among whom my former 
schoolmate was conspicuous. In spite of the cold- 
ness attributed to the Am. character, he seems 
to play the rowdy with all his heart, and as if 
he considered it the height of glory. 

The cheerfulness, the spirit of accommodation 
and politeness was extraordinary. Perfect order, 
in the most difficult evolutions of the day. An 
hundred soldiers would not in Europe have as- 
sured such quiet and unanimity. Some young 
men exhibited a good deal of humor and of 
knowledge, in their observations, and I remem- 
bered that this is our lowest class. This orderly, 
enthusiastic, and intelligent body is the nearest 
approach to the peasantry of Europe. If we have 
not the courtly polish of the European upper cir- 
cles, the absence of their stupid and brutal pea- 
santry is a fair offset. . . . 

Students of H. [Harvard] do not on all occa- 
sions appear much better than their less favored 
countrymen, either in point of gentlemanly and 
distingue appearance or in conversation. . . . 

The discussion on Fourierism, etc., of the she- 
philosophers of "W. Roxbury. Their speculations, 
and the whole atmosphere of that heart of new 
philosophy, were very striking and amusing after 
seeing the manners of Paris and London, — the 
entertainments and pleasures and the workings 
of passions which they in their retirement seem 
scarce to dream of . . . . 

England has her hedges and her smooth green 
hills, robed [?] with a spirit of power and worth, 
strengthened and sanctioned by ages ; but give 
me the rocky hillside, the shaggy cedar and scrub- 



118 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

oak, the wide reach of uncultivated landscape, the 
fiery glare of the sun ... its wild and ruddy 
light. All is new, all is rough, no charm of the 
familiar. Fierce savages have roamed like beasts 
amid its rugged scenery; there was a day of strug- 
gle, and they have passed away, and a race of 
indomitable men have succeeded them. . . . 

Nahant, July 17th. The company on board the 
steamboat — difference in silence and intelligence 
from a cackling party. The man with the model 
of a beehive, Ohio. . . . The traveled fool, set- 
ting his name in the bar book as , 

Cosmopolite. He finds some improvements here 
"very creditable to the town," of which he is a 
native. He imitates English dress and manners. 
The dinner party was various and far from dis- 
tingue. 

Roland Green, Mansfield. His family have 
relics of the Indians. 

The disagreeable whining manner of some 
vulgar Yankee girls. 

" John Norton's Captivity," taken at a fort in 
Adams, 1746. 

Springfield. The independent Yankee whom 
I spoke to about his failure to call me. In Job's 
language he " stood right up to it," giving shot 
for shot. No English creeping. 

The landlord — no bowing. 

Montague. — Grape shot dug up. 



A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 119 

The landlord of Chester Factory, sitting cross- 
legged on his chair, took no notice of me as I 
came in, but on my asking if the landlord was 
in, he said, " Yes, here I be." 

. . . An American landlord does not trouble 
himself to welcome his guests. He lets them enter 
his house, and sits by quite indifferent. He seems 
rather to consider himself as conferring an obli- 
gation in anything he may do for them. 

Stockbridge. Maple and beech have followed 
the fir of the original growth. . . . 

Dr. Partridge. The old man was in his labo- 
ratory, bedroom, etc., among his old tables, book- 
cases, etc., with shelves of medicines, and scales 
suspended hard by. He is about 94, and remem- 
bered Williams [Capt. Ephraim Williams] well, 
who he describes as a large, stout man, who used 
often to visit his father, and take him on his 
knee. He says he remembers the face as if he 
saw it yesterday, especially the swelling of the 
ruddy cheeks. His father, Colonel Partridge, 
was in the service, and despised Abercrombie as 
a coward. The Dr. remembers seeing a thou- 
sand of Abercrombie's Highlanders at Hatfield 
or some other town where they were billeted. 
Abercrombie was always trembling with fear of 
Indians, and sending out scouts about camp. 
When Howe fell, Partridge, the Dr. says, was 
at his side, and his lordship said, " The army 
has no leader, and is defeated." . . . 

Gt. Barrington . . . Mt. Washington . . . 
Bash-a-Bish. . . . 



120 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

The hearty, horse-swapping, thumping young 
Dutchman, who would be damned if he carted for 
anything if he could only swap off his old wag- 
ons for Jim Pray's colt. . . . 

The crouching, cadaverous, lank old man with 
the opium for his rheumatic wife. . . . The Irish 
priest, with his jovial conversation and hints 
about a mitre. [Here follow various rumors 
concerning letters, journals, remembrances, tra- 
ditions, concerning perhapses and may-be's, con- 
cerning Capt. Ephraim Williams and Rogers 
the Ranger, all clues carefully noted, followed 
by a " Nil Desperandum."~\ 

The two girls on the road from N. Adams. 
One of them was a mixture of all the mean quali- 
ties of her sex with none of the nobler. She was 
full of the pettiest envy, spite, jealousy, and 
malice, singularly impudent and indelicate. 

" Should have given ye a pie to-day, but ain't 
got no timber to make 'em." 

Then follow memoranda of books, maps, his- 
tories, memoirs, travels, letters, papers, pam- 
phlets, notes from a French MS., etc., ending 
with a reminder to be at Cambridge on the third 
Wednesday of August. 

But before the middle of September, with 
another neat little leather-tongued notebook, 
he went off to Concord. On the flyleaf is the 
note " Read Dryden's prose " and also a copy 
of a plan of old Fort Mackinaw made by 



A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 121 

Lieutenant Whiting. This notebook served the 
purpose of a spleen-valve, for in the midst of 
historical notes and references are interspersed 
very caustic descriptions of acquaintances and 
companions. It would be unjust to think that 
these satirical sketches indicate the usual pitch 
of his judgments. A lad of twenty-one or two, 
with a proud resolution hidden in his breast, with 
strong ambition and high purposes, and perhaps 
not unmindful of certain maidenly opinions, en- 
tertained at Keene and Salem, as to what the 
world and young men should be, may well be 
forgiven if he measures his fellows by exacting 
standards, — standards to which he endeavors to 
conform his own conduct. Perhaps it was the 
memory of a girl at Keene that provoked this 
little irritation. 

Sunday, Sept. 21. Some men are fools, utter 
and inexpressible fools. I went over to Dr. Z's 

last night to call on Miss . Heaven knows I 

am quite indifferent to her charms, and called 
merely out of politeness, not caring to have her 
think I slighted her. But the Dr. in the con- 
temptible suspicion that he is full of, chose to 
interpret otherwise. William X was there, whom 
I allowed to converse with Miss Y while I talked 
with the Dr.'s lady. The Dr. watched me, though 
I was not aware of it at the time, till happening 
to rise to take a bottle of cologne, out of a mere 
whim, and applying some of it to my handker- 



122 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

chief, the idiot made a remark, in a meaning 
tone, about " long walks " in the evening. He 
soon after asked me to take a glass of wine, say- 
ing that it would make me feel better. He whis- 
pered in my ear that X would go soon — and I 
better stay. What could I do or say ? I longed 
to tell him the true state of my feelings, and 
above all what I thought of his suspicious imper- 
tinence. I left the house vexed beyond measure 
at being pitied as a jealous lover, when one ob- 
ject of my visit to Miss that evening was to 

prove to her and the rest how free I was from 
the influence of her attractions. Is it not hard 
for a man of sense to penetrate all the depths of 
a blockhead's folly ? and to know what inter- 
pretation such a fellow will put on his conduct ? 
I sent him a letter which I think will trouble not 
a little his jealous and suspicious temper. . . . 

L 's freaks ; his disgusting habits at table ; 

windows broken and he will not mend them ; 

goes to B 's room, looks into his drawers, 

" Hulloo, you 've got some gingerbread ! " invites 
himself to spend the evening there ; stays till 
morning, and sleeps standing against the wall, 
like a horse ! 

Neither was our young gentleman very broad- 
minded : — 

May 30, 1845. A great meeting of the Fou- 
rierites in Tremont Chapel. Most of them were 
rather a mean set of fellows — several foreign- 
ers — plenty of women, none pretty — there was 
most cordial shaking of hands and mutual con- 



A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 123 

gratulations before the meeting began. A dirty 
old man four feet high, filthy with tobacco, came 
and sat down by me and was very enthusiastic. 
He thought Mr. Ripley, who made the opening 
speech, "one of the greatest men our coun- 
try can produce." Ripley was followed by a 
stout old man ; he spoke with his hands in his 
pockets, and gave nothing but statistics, in a 
very dry uninteresting manner. It surprised me 
to see these old fellows, who looked like any- 
thing but enthusiasts, attached to the cause. 

H , the editor from N. Y., spoke in 

a very weak indecisive manner, seemingly afraid 
of himself and his audience. . . . Brisbane and 
Dana followed in a pair of windy speeches, and 
Channing was beginning a ditto when I came 
away. They say that there is a system of laws 
by which the world is to be governed " harmo- 
niously," and that they have discovered those 

laws. F. was there looking much more 

like a lunatic or a beast than a man. 

The young man had standards of his own ; to 
his thinking there were certain things a man 
should endeavor to do, certain behaviors to 
which a gentleman must conform ; and as he 
was endowed with a masterful quality of mind 
and an impatience of bad work, Frank had a 
youthful tendency to abrupt and severe judg- 
ments ; of which, be it said, there is not a trace 
in his history. 

At Cambridge, soon after the summoning bell 
of the third Wednesday, he began a new note- 



124 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

book, not of the holiday kind incased in green 
leather, but a large square blue-covered notebook 
intended for the base uses of grinds. This little 
book proves his great zeal in acquiring know- 
ledge of European history. Long notes from 
Gibbon on polytheism, policy, population, roads, 
trade, and other great matters, so heavy to read, 
so light to forget. On Gibbon's heels follow 
Robertson and the Feudal System, then Gibbon 
again, who had not been finished but intermitted ; 
after him de Mably and Sismondi, then Gibbon 
back again, like a great whale coming up to 
breathe, all about kings, popes, declines of this 
and growths of that ; then, on loose and separated 
pages as befitted a lesser dignity, hints of Polizi- 
ano and Savonarola. Then come Sully, Wraxall, 
Michelet, glimpses of the humanities, and so 
on through close pages of abstracts and memo- 
randa, until Notebook, No. 2, is reached, which 
to the reader's relief of mind is dated six months 
later, where Frank makes a headlong plunge into 
the Holy Roman Empire, and all for the sake of 
a background for Indian and coureur de bois. 
Macaulay, von Ranke, Guizot, Dunham, Millot, 
Pfeffel, Giannone (unless perchance these latter 
two be makers and not writers of history), pri- 
mogeniture, Salic law, patriotism, vavasours, de- 
cretals, Venice, heresy, and despotism, all come 
up to be taxed according to the decree of the 



A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 125 

young Caesar, who had resolved to put a new 
province under his subjection. No doubt even 
such a hearty appetite, whetted by ambition, 
helped by a strong memory, could not digest 
the great stretch of recorded time from Augus- 
tus to the sailing of Jacques Cartier from Havre 
de Grace, but he learned enough to know what 
he must follow up more closely and what he 
might pass by. Professor Wendell relates how 
he once met Parkman in the Louvre, in front of 
a picture of the murder of the due de Guise, and 
Parkman immediately recounted with finished 
detail all the story. The immediate service of 
the Roman Empire, of the feudal system, of 
mediaeval Europe was, not to stand either as 
scenery or background, but to fill the vast spaces 
behind, — where carpenters, machinists, stage- 
managers toil and sweat, — all to cast the right 
lights upon the stage on which Pontiac was to 
play his brilliant part. 

When the Law School opened, Frank took a 
room in Divinity Hall, and using Blackstone as 
a stalking horse betook himself to the immedi- 
ate object of his thoughts. Here is a list of some 
of the books he took from the college library 
while in college and at the Law School : Scott, 
Shakespeare, Coleridge, Goldsmith, Dr. John- 
son, Irving, Chateaubriand, Carlyle, Machiavelli 
in Italian, and, first interspersed but soon domi- 



126 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

nating general reading, books of American his- 
tory, " Long's Expedition," " Indian Wars," 
"New Hampshire Historical Collection," "Lewis 
and Clark," " Travels in Canada," " American 
Annals," " Rogers's Jounnal," " Carver's Trav- 
els," " Bouquet's Expedition," " Tracts on the 
War," " Charlevoix," Colden's " Five Nations," 
" Moaurs des Sauvages," and scores more, many 
or all contributing their tale of notes to fill little 
books. 

But study did not play too tyrannical a part 
in his life ; he gave friendship and social pleasure 
their dues. 

PARKMAN TO GEORGE S- HALE, KEENE, N. H. 
Cambridge, Monday, Oct. 6, [1844]. 

Dear George, — . . . When shall I hear of 
you and of your intentions with regard to your pro- 
fession ? Have you decided on the black gown ? 
Believe me it will turn out the best spec. I am 
down at Divinity, devoting one hour per diem 
to law, the rest to my own notions. It is a little 
dismal here without the fellers, and no Cary 
[George Blankern Cary, a classmate] to laugh 
at — life a dull, unchanging monotony, varied by 
a constitutional walk, or an evening expedition 
to see Macready. . . . 

We have here in the Law School a sprinkling 
of fine fellows from north, south, east, and west 
— some in the quiet studying line, some in the 
all Hell style, and some a judicious combination 



A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 127 

of both. Dr. Walker pronounces a " very good 
spirit" to prevail among the undergraduates, so 
that there is no chance of a rebellion or any- 
other recreation to entertain us lookers-on. . . . 
Please remember me to your father, mother, and 
sister. Yrs. very truly, 

Frank Parkman. 

HALE TO PARKMAN, CAMBRIDGE 

Keene, Oct. 28, 1844. 

Dear Frank, — . . .In common with you I 
have paid a little attention to Blackstone, and 
hope to finish the second volume this week, but 
not in such a way as to feel confident that I am 
gaining much certain knowledge. Will you tell 
me when you write how you study at C, at what 
[and what] your lectures amount to, how fast 
you read, etc. [embarrassing questions to a young 
gentleman whose attention was already fixed on a 
"Ranger's Adventure " and a " Scalp-Hunter "]. 
. . . You ask about the black gown — It trem- 
bles in the balance. Would I could see my way 
clear — I should certainly feel more at ease. To 
tell the truth sub rosa, I am not in love with any 
one of the learned professions. Oh glorious lit- 
erary ease," sweet otium cum scientia " ! — " glo- 
rious humbug " " sweet nonsense" says Frank 
Parkman and perhaps rightly. In the mean- 
time we both shout Vive Famitie — and cherish 
faithfully the remembrance of youthful efforts 
which made the . . . [Chit Chat Club] worthy of 
fame to our vanity, as it certainly was a bond of 
union to its members. 

Please tell Ned D wight he owes me a letter, 



128 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

and remember that you also are now my debtor. 
Meanwhile and ever, I am most truly 
Yr. friend and classmate, 

George S. Hale. 



SAME TO SAME. 

Keene,. N. H., Nov. 1% 1844. 

Dear Frank, — ... I was very glad to hear 
from you so soon. Quick replies are the life of 
a friendly correspondence. ... I think the bal- 
ance is rather inclining to sackcloth and the 
black gown, but I do not wish to decide at pre- 
sent. Miss Hall was very glad to hear from you 
and will welcome you to Keene with pleasure 
whenever your memory or fancy may lead you 
away from your present literary ease. Do not 
forget the maxim I laid down upon quick replies. 
I assure you that your letters can never wear out 
the hearty welcome they always get from me. 
Most sincerely your friend, 

George S. Hale. 

Keene was not the only place where Frank 
was in favor. 

Salem, Noon, Wednesday, Jan, 15th, '45. 

My dear Frank, — You will scarcely ex- 
pect me to pop in again on you so soon, but I 
wish to nudge your memory, which seems to be 
very short lived in regard to your Fair friends 
in this City of Peace ; our next Assembly is to- 
morrow night, — i. e. Thursday, Jan. 16th, '45, — 
and my grandmother begs me to assure you that 
your chamber is ready for your occupation on 



A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 129 

said night, and your knife and fork will be placed 
for as many meals as you will honor her ; for be 
it known to you, she considers the " Rev. Dr. P.'s 
son as a young man of remarkably quick parts 
and very correct," to say nothing of his being 
my friend. ... So if the recollection of the last 
Assembly is agreeable enough to tempt you, and 
nothing better offers nearer home, you must come 
down to-morrow. Besides, we must chat over and 
arrange the Keene expedition. . . . 

If you will dine enfamille with us to-morrow, 
I should be happy to measure appetites with 
you. . . . 

Farewell — my estomac cries " cupboard," and 
half -past one — our primitive dinner hour — is 
at hand. Kind remembrances, 

Joe Peabody. 

Dancing and flirting, if that light word may 
be applied to Salem in the forties, were not the 
only indications of youth and lightheartedness 
to be found in the life of Francis Parkman, 
Junior, ostensible votary of Blackstone and 
Kent. 

PARKMAN TO HALE, KEENE, N. H. 

Cambridge, Nov. 24, '44. 

Dear George, — ... We wanted you the 
other night. Joe got up one of his old-fashioned 
suppers on a scale of double magnificence, in- 
viting thereunto every specimen of the class of 
'44 that lingered within an accessible distance. 
There was old S. and Snaggy, N. D., Ned W. 



130 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

(who by the way is off for Chili !), P., etc., etc. 
The spree was worthy of the entertainment. 
None got drunk, but all got jolly ; and Joe's 
champagne disappeared first ; then his Madeira ; 
and his whiskey punch would have followed suit 
if its copious supplies had not prevented. At 
first all was quiet and dignified, not unworthy 
of graduates ; but at length the steam found vent 
in three cheers for '44, and after that we did not 
cease singing and roaring till one o'clock. ... I 
succeeded in actually singing in the chorus to 
Yankee Doodle without perceptibly annoying 
the rest. . . . The whole ended with smashing a 
dozen bottles . . . and a war dance with scalp 
yells in the middle of the Common, in the course 
of which several nightcapped heads appeared at 
the opened windows of the astonished neighbors. 1 

PARKMAN TO GEORGE B. CARY. 

Cambridge, Dee. 15, '44. 
Dear George, — Here I am, down in Divin- 
ity Hall enjoying to my heart's content that 
otium cum dignitate which you so affectionately 
admire ; while you poor devil are jolted in Eng- 
lish coaches. . . . Do you not envy me in my lit- 
erary ease ? — a sea-coal fire — a dressing-gown 
— slippers — a favorite author; all set off by 
an occasional bottle of champagne, or a bowl of 
stewed oysters at Washburn's ? This is the cream 
of existence. To lay abed in the morning, till 
the sun has half melted away the trees and cas- 
tles on the window-panes, and Nigger Lewis's 
fire is almost burnt out, listening meanwhile to 
1 Life of Francis Parkman, p. 23. 



A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 131 

the steps of the starved Divinities as they rush 
shivering and panting to their prayers and reci- 
tations — then to get up to a fashionable break- 
fast at eleven — then go to lecture — find it a 
little too late, and adjourn to Joe Peabody's 
room for a novel, conversation, and a morning 
glass of Madeira. ... — After all a man was 
made to be happy; ambition is a humbug — a 
dream of youth ; and exertion another ; . . . I 
think the morbid tendency to unnecessary action 
passes away as manhood comes on. . . . 

At this time he injured sight and health by 
getting up very early and studying by candle- 
light, often without a fire. 

Perhaps you may imagine me under some vi- 
nous influence in writing this. Not at all ; yet if 
I had written this a few nights ago, perhaps it 
might have smacked more of inspiration. We 
had a class spree ! Where if there was not much 
wit, there was, as the Vicar of Wakefield says, 
a great deal of laughing, not to mention singing, 
roaring, and unseemly noises of a miscellaneous 
character. . . . Our brothers, whilom of . . . [Chit 
Chat Club] accused me in the beginning of the 
term of an intention of authorship ! probably 
taking the hint from the circumstance of my 
never appearing till eleven o'clock, a la Scott ; 
but I believe they no longer suspect me of so ill 
advised an intention. It would run a little counter 
to my present principles, though I do remember 
the time when G. B. C. [Cary] meditated the 

Baron of B ; and Snow felt sure (in his 

cups) of being Captain General of Transatlantic 



132 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Literature, while your humble servant's less soar- 
ing ambition aspired to the manufacture of blood 
and thunder chronicles of Indian squabbles and 
massacres. . . . You will answer this, will you 
not ? I am very eager to hear from you. 

Yours truly, F. Parkman. 1 

Frank kept his purpose to himself, and con- 
cealed from even his intimate friends that " Capt. 
Jonathan Carver " had been at work on a tale 
entitled " The Ranger's Adventure," and after 
that on another entitled " The Scalp-Hunter." 
1 Life of Francis Parkman, pp. 19-22. 



CHAPTER XIII 

PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 

The earlier progress of the relations between 
Frank and his first publisher may be deduced 
from the following letters : — 

Knickerbocker Office, New York, Feb. 18, '45. 

To Capt. Jonathan Carver : 

Dear Sir, — I thank you most cordially for 
your excellent sketch," The Scalp-Hunter," which 
you were so good as to send us. It is truly a 
thrilling story, and, to my mind, the closing 
scene is worthy of Cooper's pen. It is even 
better than "The Ranger's Adventure," which 
graces our March issue. It shall have a " place 
of honor " in our April number. 

I need not say that we shall be but too happy 
to hear from you at all times ; and it gives me 
pleasure to say to you, that your impression of 
the character of the medium of communication 
with the public which you have chosen is by no 
means a mistaken one. If ever there was a peri- 
odical that could be proud of its class of readers, 
it is the " Knickerbocker." There is an affection 
in the public mind toward it, which I am sure is 
not surpassed by any kindred work at home or 



134 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

abroad. Pardon tins seeming egotism, my dear 
sir. I love the "Old Knick.," having been for 
eleven years its editor ; and the feeling is widely 
shared ; for more than half our subscribers are 
of that long standing. Our corps of contributors 
— God bless them ! — can't be exceeded ; as one 
may see, by looking at their names on the cover. 

You will receive the " Knickerbocker " regu- 
larly hereafter. Is " Capt. Jonathan Carver " a 
nom cle plume f I partly suspect so, since proba- 
bility seems rather to favor the conclusion that a 
gentleman tolerably familiar with his own name 
would n't be very apt to make a mistake in spell- 
ing it. I observe you subscribe yourself Captain 
" Jo/mathan " Carver ! May I hope to hear from 
you. Gratefully and truly yrs, 

L. Gayloed Clark. 

Capt. " Joy/NATHAN " Carver. 

Knickerbocker Sanctum, Monday, March 10th, 45. 
My dear Sir, — ... I must again cordially 
thank you for the " Scalp-Hunter." I am an 
" old stager " in matters of the sort ; and it must 
be something really "thrilling" to keep me 
awake at night, after reading a proof sheet. . . . 
I should be glad to hear from you as often as 
may be agreeable to you ; and as early as the 
sixth of each month, if intended for the ensuing 
Number. Very truly, your obliged 

L. Gaylord Clark. 

Frank was, not unnaturally, taxed by his 
friends with " concealment," or with what among 
law students was probably known as svppressio 



PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 135 

veri, the suppression of an important matter, 
which the intimacy of friendship claimed a title 
to hear. This charge, made by an affection that 
felt a little hurt to find itself ranked lower than 
it ranked itself, was not without justification. 

PARKMAN TO HALE, FEB. 13, 1845. 

By the way, what do you mean by charging 
me (for the fourth time, is it ?) with a design 
to write a novel, or a poem, or an essay, or what- 
ever it is? Allow me to tell you that though 
the joke may be good, it is certainly old. . . . 
If you catch me writing anything of the sort, you 
might call me a " darned fool " with great pro- 
priety as well as elegance. 1 

Frank, boy and man, was not oversensitive to 
criticism. His own judgment was the only tribu- 
nal of much consequence to him ; moreover, he 
was already in full cry upon the scent of Pontiac, 
" laboring through an army of musty books and 
antiquarian collections," and what between Eu- 
ropean history, which he was reading hard, and 
a decent appearance of attending lectures on 
law, he was too much occupied to trouble him- 
self with animadversions on what he deemed 
his own business. And, though Frank was a 
good son, then and always, he did not take his 
family into his confidence about his literary 
work any more than he did his comrades. This 
1 Life of Francis Parkman, p. 22. 



136 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

was natural, as his father was out of sympathy 
with his interests, and wished him — as fathers 
do — to pursue a safe career, and win a high 
position at the Suffolk bar. But Frank was 
always dutiful, and their relations, if not inti- 
mate, were right-minded and affectionate. 

This summer's trip was begun in July, but 
in the mean time, by dint of five o'clock in the 
morning application, Frank had sent off the copy 
for another tale to be published in the " Knicker- 
bocker Magazine" for June, and also a poem, 
entitled, " The New Hampshire Kanger," to be 
published in August. This year's little notebook, 
crammed as usual with memoranda of MSS., 
maps, pamphlets, and addresses of possible anti- 
quarians, shows that Frank stopped in New York 
long enough to make caustic notes on some young 
women, and quickly continued his journey to Phil- 
adelphia. 

Philadelphia, July 14, '45. 

Dear Mother, — Though I have been sev- 
eral days here, I have been compelled to re- 
main quiet and passive by the furious heat ; 
it has now got up to 100° of the thermometer. 
There is positively no place tolerably comfort- 
able but the bath, where I spend most of my 
time. Yesterday I was at a Quaker meeting, 
where, as it was too hot for the Spirit to move 
anybody, the whole congregation slept in perfect 
quiet for an hour and then walked off, without a 



PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 137 

word said. . . . The Philadelphians have shrunk 
away to the dimensions of Frenchmen, by the 
effects of the climate. People lounge about at 
corners and around pumps, rapidly cooking in 
the sun. ... I go to Lancaster to-morrow, thence 
to Harrisburg, thence to Pittsburg, thence give 
a look at Ohio, and thence go to Detroit, from 
which I propose to return by Niagara and Albany. 
My love to Carrie [his sister] and the rest, and 
believe me, 

Affectionately yours, Frank. 



At Lancaster he interested himself in observ- 
ing the Dutch farmers; at Harrisburg he divided 
his attention between the Dutch and the Sus- 
quehanna, and made expeditions in the neighbor- 
hood to scenes of old forays. The railroads met 
with his disapproval, so did some of his fellow 
passengers ; " a drunken, swearing puppy in the 
cars first amused and then disgusted me." At 
Buffalo he took the steamer for Detroit in com- 
pany with " a host of Norwegian emigrants, very 
diminutive, very ugly, very stupid and brutal in 
appearance, and very dirty. They appeared to me 
less intelligent and as ignorant as the Indians." 
At Detroit he studied all the places which he 
describes in the chapters relating to the siege of 
the fort by Pontiac. Thence he went down Lake 
Huron to Mackinaw, noting woodland and marsh, 
promontory, beach and island, Indian huts and 



138 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Canadian settlements. Here he met a lieutenant 
in the regular army, an antiquarian like him- 
self (" of which title I am a little ashamed," he 
modestly says). He went about as usual, hunting 
up the oldest inhabitants, buttonholing all per- 
sons suspected of special knowledge, conversing 
with Indians, crawling into caves, climbing hills, 
measuring fortifications, pacing the sites of an- 
cient forts, jotting down odd scraps of informa- 
tion ready for use thereafter. Nor did he forget 
to find room in his diary for biting comments: — 

The dyspeptic man who insisted on helping 
himself to such morsels as suited him (with his 
own knife and fork). He had nursed himself 
till he had reached a state of egotistic selfish- 
ness. . . . Niagara, Aug. 17. The " Cataract " 
is a bloated, noisy house ; a set of well-dressed 
blackguards predominated at table. ... I have 
looked at the great cataract, but do not feel in 
the temper to appreciate it, or embrace its gran- 
deur. An old woman, who for the pure love of 
talking and an itching to speak to every one, sev- 
eral times addressed me with questions about she 
knew not what, filled me with sensations of par- 
ticular contempt instead of amusing me, as they 
would have done had not my stomach been dis- 
ordered. I sat down near the rapids. " What 's 
all this but a little water and foam ? " thought I. 
" What a pack of damned fools ! " was my inter- 
nal commentary on every group that passed, and 
some of them deserved it. But, thank Heaven, 
I have partially recovered my good humor, can 



PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 139 

sympathize with the species, and to some degree 
feel the sublimity of the great cataract. 

How many of the visitors here deserve to look 
on it ? I saw in the tower a motherly dame and 
her daughters, amid the foam and thunder and 
the tremendous pouring of the waters. " Oh, 
ma ! (half whispered) he 's looking at us ! There, 
I 've torn my sash. I must go home and pin it 
up," etc. 

From Niagara he went to Oswego, Syracuse, 
to the little Onondaga River, where he inspected 
the council-house of the Indians, presented to the 
chiefs gifts of cigars and pipes, and for return 
extracted what information he could ; thence to 
Oneida, to the valley of the Mohawk, and home- 
ward by Albany and New York. 

These little notebooks not only show where 
Frank went and what he did, but by indirection 
reveal his dutiful character ; for, secluded on 
back pages, there are accounts of expenditure, 
kept in boyish-clerkly fashion and somewhat spas- 
modically. Frank had little natural taste for the 
counting-room virtues, but he wished to please 
his father, and so we find entries such as these : — 

Funds at starting, Tuesday, July 8, 1845 $103.17 
A bill of credit for $100 more. 
July 8. Cravat $ .75 

" Shave .06 

" Cider .04 

" Ticket to N. Y. 2. 

" Supper on board .50 



140 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

9th 



Ale 


.06 


Boots 


.121 


Porter 


.11 


Carriage to Astor H. 


.50 


Baths 


.25 



and so on with minute precision till his return. 
In this same little book, at the top of a page, 
in among notes of American history, of Indians, 
of frontiersmen, of journals, of gazettes, and all 
the heady current of furious historic chase, is 
written, abbreviated in order to squeeze in amid 
more important matter : — 

M. W. F. — Greenleaf 

Tues. T. S. — Story 

10-11 o'clock 
Story on Bailments Tuesday from 10-11 
Blackstone on Wednesday 11-12 2 d & 3 d Sections espe- 
cially. 

A poor pennyworth of law to an intolerable deal 
of border war ; this affords a fair measure of 
the division of his interest between law and 
history. 

The next year he lived at home in Boston, 
partly because his third term at the Law School 
would be completed on January 16, and partly be- 
cause he was not well ; at times he lay in bed and 
listened to his little sister, Eliza, read a stumpy 
little volume of Blackstone, and on one day at 
least Frithiof's Saga. The girl was shy about 
reading poetry, and the admired big brother, 



PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 141 

perceiving her diffidence, turned and praised 
her; then and always his careless seeming but 
instinctive tenderness knit bonds that grew 
stronger and stronger all their lives. 

In spite of Kent and Blackstone, Frank con- 
tinued to give his almost exclusive interest to 
historical research, and we find traces of a wide- 
spread correspondence, — Ohio, Delaware, Italy, 
— questions and answers about Pontiac, Paxton 
Boys, Jesuits, etc. Some of these letters were 
to his cousin, J. Coolidge Shaw, a young man 
lately converted to Catholicism, then studying 
in Rome for the priesthood. 

SHAW TO PARKMAN. 

Rome, Nov. 16th, 1845. 

My dear Frank, — I have inquired at the 
Gesu of Father Glover and Father de Villefort 
concerning your Canada affairs, but it was in 
1762 that the Company of Jesus was suppressed 
in France, and though the missionaries in Can- 
ada were not meddled with, this of course de- 
stroyed the communication between them and 
the mother country. [Here follows advice as to 
getting historical information, and the names of 
several Jesuit Fathers.] If these cannot give 
you what you seek, I fear it cannot be found. 

Do you think you shall stick to the Law, or 
cut it in a year or two to give yourself completely 
to history ? I am glad you have taken this turn, 
for we want literary men, and a fair historian 



142 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

is a great desideratum. ... It was history 
made Hunter a Catholic ; and I think if you 
continue it, it will make you one ; . . . and we 
may live to see the poor Pope stripped of what 
little earthly power yet remains to him, and 
as completely a beggar as St. Peter or our 
Saviour himself ; but we shall see him still the 
Pope, and his people still look to him as father. 
Negas f Well, we shall see. . . . Kemember 
me with all love to Uncle Francis. . . . Tell 
him we are now studying the treatise De Trini- 
tate, which I think, if he read it, would convince 
him that our Lord is not over well pleased at 
being stripped of his Divinity and only honored 
as a man when he ought to be worshiped as a 
God. 

Hope to have the pleasure of reading your 
work when it is out, and that its success will 
give you a right to make it your fixed pur- 
suit. . . . 

Truly and affectionately yrs, 

J. C. Shaw. 

With theology and formal religion Frank had 
little sympathy ; but random comments in his 
diaries show that all his life he had a " reverent 
gratitude for Christianity " and a strong senti- 
ment for what he deemed a real and masculine 
religion. Probably the epithet, " reverent agnos- 
tic," which near the end of life he accepted in a 
conversation with his sister, of right belonged to 
him in youth. Manliness was an essential char- 
acteristic of everything that found favor in his 



PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 143 

eyes, and he believed the agnostic position the 
most manly, for with that belief, so he thought, 
a man stood on his own feet and faced the 
universe, asking no prop except his own stout 
heart. But metaphysics never interested him, 
and at this time history crowded out every other 
thought from his mind. 

Frank now perceived that he had reached a 
point in his studies at which he must take a new 
course. On his summer excursions he had got 
much information concerning the Yankee fron- 
tiersman, he had read all the books he could find 
that dealt with his subject, he had quizzed 
farmer, antiquarian, and wayfarer for tradition, 
gossip, hearsay ; he must now study the Indians, 
not the tamed savages living by the Kennebec, 
or the Onondaga, but the aboriginal savages, in 
their homes. He knew that personal knowledge 
of their life and customs was essential to his 
work, and now that he had performed the filial 
duty of taking his lawyer's degree, he felt that it 
was high time to go westward to the land of the 
Sioux and the Snakes. Accordingly he gladly 
accepted a suggestion from Mr. Quincy A. Shaw, 
Coolidge's brother, — he, too, bred upon Cooper 
and Catlin, — to join him and to take a journey 
towards Oregon and California. 

Already that year, immediately on the comple- 
tion of his third term in the Law School, Frank 



144 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

had made a trip to Philadelphia and Baltimore, 
on which he had acquired certain valuable ex- 
periences carefully jotted down in his notebook : 
" N. B. Always take a driver's card. . . . N. B. 
Employ a porter in preference to a carriage for 
baggage. . . . Always ask for a porter's card — 
see your baggage ticketed in person and get the 
number of the car that contains it." From this 
trip he got home about the middle of February, 
and on March 28th started off again, this time 
on his memorable expedition upon the Oregon 
Trail. The careful little record of accounts, in 
which bills for copying MSS. begin to appear - — 
item $1.50, item $5.00, item $25.00 — show that 
he went to New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, 
and so to St. Louis. 

FRANK TO HIS MOTHER. 

Cincinnati, April 9th, 1846. 

Dear Mother, — ... To-day I reached 
Cincinnati, after a two days' passage down the 
Ohio. The boat was good enough though filled 
with a swarm of half-civilized reprobates, gam- 
bling, swearing, etc., among themselves. . . . The 
great annoyance on board these boats is the ab- 
surd haste of everybody to gulp down their 
meals. Ten minutes suffices for dinner, and it 
requires great skill and assiduity to secure a 
competent allowance in that space of time. As 
I don't much fancy this sort of proceeding, I 
generally manage to carry off from the table 



PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 145 

enough to alleviate the pangs of hunger without 
choking myself. The case is much the same here 
in the best hotel in Cincinnati. When you sit 
down, you must begin without delay — grab 
whatever is within your reach, and keep hold of 
the plate by main force till you have helped 
yourself. Eat up as many potatoes, onions, or 
turnips as you can lay hands on ; and take your 
meat afterwards, whenever yon have a chance to 
get it. It is only by economizing time in this 
fashion that you can avoid starvation — such a 
set of beasts are these western men. ... In 
three or four days I shall be at St. Louis, stop- 
ping a short time at Louisville, Kentucky. My 
eyes are decidedly improved, and my health ex- 
cellent. In going about Cincinnati this morning, 
I found a most ridiculous piece of architecture, 
in utter defiance of taste or common sense ; and 
learned that it was built by Mrs. Trollope during 
her stay here. ... I am, dear mother, 

Very affectionately yrs, F. P. 

This letter must have crossed two from his 
sister Caroline. 

CAROLINE TO FRANK. 

April 4, 1846. 

My dear Frank, — ... I don't believe 
you can form any idea of your importance in our 
family. We wish for you just as much to-day 
as we did a week ago, when you left us. I was 
really truly sorry that I had not a better com- 
mand of myself when you went away, for it is too 
bad to give way to the feelings and make a leave- 



146 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

taking for such a pleasant journey so gloomy. 
If I could have gone over the good-by again, it 
should have been with smiles rather than tears, 
for I would not be so selfish as to think of my- 
self, when there is so much pleasure in prospect 
for you. . . . With true love, 

Carrie. 

CAROLINE TO FRANK. 

April 7, Boston, 1840. 
... I spent Sunday with Aunt Mary, who 
misses your visits and the prospect of them very 
much. I mean to spend a day or two with her 
every week. Mrs. Swan wished me to give her 
love to you, and says that she cannot realize 
that such a quiet little boy as you were should 
ever be such a " Will-o-the-Wisp." ... I for- 
got to tell you in our last letter how extremely 
disappointed Perry [his classmate, H. J. Perry] 
was on coming to see you on the afternoon you 
had gone. . . . They all send their love, espe- 
cially Elly [his little brother], who misses you 
very much, as we all do. . . . 

With much love, Carrie. 

Frank was making notes all the time. He had 
stopped to see the site of Fort Duquesne, the 
remains of Fort Pitt, the spot of Braddock's de- 
feat, and various scenes of border war ; nor did 
he pretermit his practice of making comments 
on the people he met. " The English reserve or 
offishness seems to be no part of the western 
character — I observe this trait in myself — to- 



PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 147 

day, for instance, when a young fellow expressed 
satisfaction that he should accompany me to St. 
Louis, I felt rather inclined to shake him off, 
though he had made himself agreeable enough." 
This trait of Parkman's remained with him 
through life ; it may receive sympathy or blame, 
according to temperament, or perhaps accord- 
ing to the mood of the moment, but those who, 
like this young fellow, wished to come within a 
line beyond which Par km an proposed that they 
should stay, were sometimes wounded in their 
vanity. 

He reached St. Louis about the 13th of April, 
and was soon joined by Shaw. 



CHAPTER XIV 



In the early part of 1846 Oregon was still the 
whole country west of the Rocky Mountains, 
stretching from Mexico (as it was then still un- 
dispossessed by the United States), on the south, 
as far north as the parallel 50° 40', and was 
jointly occupied by Great Britain and the United 
States, until later in that year the treaty fixed 
the boundary between them at the 49th par- 
allel. The trail was the somewhat uncertain 
track followed by emigrants and traders. 

This expedition, which Shaw wished to ex- 
tend to California but could not as Frank had 
not the time to give, took them into the vast 
region east of the Rocky Mountains which is 
now cut up into the States of Nebraska, Colo- 
rado, and Wyoming. 

Parkman and Shaw left St. Louis on the 
28th of April, 1846, on board a river steamboat 
in a somewhat disorderly company of traders, 
adventurers, gamblers, negroes, Indians, and emi- 

1 See The Oregon Trail 



OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 149 

grants. They landed on the western frontier of 
Missouri near Kansas City, which they reached 
the next day. There they made their headquar- 
ters while purchasing horses, mules, and various 
articles necessary for the journey. Near by, en- 
camped on the prairie, were a multitude of emi- 
grants. Some of them were sober men, inter- 
ested in the doctrine of regeneration, others were 
rogues from the lowest layer of society, prompted 
by a forlorn hope of bettering their condition, 
or by mere restlessness, or perhaps by a wish to 
shake off the restraints of law and society. 
Parkman and Shaw did not like such company, 
and therefore they joined forces with a small 
party of Englishmen for the sake of mutual 
protection. 

Their first experiences of the journey westward 
were a mild foretaste of what was to come. No 
sooner were the animals put in harness than the 
shaft-mule reared and plunged, burst ropes and 
straps, and nearly flung the cart into the Mis- 
souri. The beast was uncontrollable, and an- 
other had to be procured. This done, their cart 
started, but had barely gone a few miles before 
it stuck fast in a muddy gully, where it remained 
for more than an hour. Their outfit was suffi- 
cient but not elaborate. Their guide was dressed 
in broad felt hat, moccasins, and deerskin trou- 
sers ; he rode a Wyandot pony and carried his 



150 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

rifle in front, resting on the pommel of the sad- 
dle, bullet-pouch and powder-horn at his side, 
and knife in belt. Parkman and Shaw wore 
flannel shirts, buckskin breeches, and moccasins ; 
each had a blanket rolled up behind, holsters 
with heavy pistols, and the trail-rope coiled and 
fastened to the front of the saddle. Each had 
a gun, and a horse beside the one he rode. The 
cart carried the provisions, tent, ammunition, 
blankets, and presents for Indians. The mule- 
teer, Deslauriers, was a Canadian. 

Neither fatigue, exposure, nor hard labor 
could ever impair his cheerfulness and gayety, 
or his politeness to his bourgeois [employer] ; 
and when night came he would sit down by 
the fire, smoke his pipe, and tell stories with 
the utmost contentment. The prairie was his 
element. 

The guide, Henry Chatillon, was of a much 
higher type ; he came of a family of French Ca- 
nadians, though he was born in Missouri. He 
was a tall, powerful, fine-looking fellow. 

The prairies had been his school; he could 
neither read nor write, but he had a natural re- 
finement and delicacy of mind, such as is rare 
even in women. His manly face was a mirror 
of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart ; 
he had, moreover, a keen perception of charac- 
ter, and a tact that would preserve him from 
flagrant error in any society. He had not the 



OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 151 

restless energy of an Anglo-American. He was 
content to take things as he found them ; and 
his chief fault arose from an excess of easy gen- 
erosity not conducive to thriving in the world. 
Yet it was commonly remarked of him that, 
whatever he might choose to do with what 
belonged to himself, the property of others was 
always safe in his hands. His bravery was as 
much celebrated in the mountains as his skill in 
hunting ; but it is characteristic of him that, in 
a country where the rifle is the chief arbiter be- 
tween man and man, he was very seldom in- 
volved in quarrels. Once or twice, indeed, his 
quiet good-nature had been mistaken and pre- 
sumed upon, but the consequences of the error 
were such that no one was ever known to repeat 
it. No better evidence of the intrepidity of his 
temper could be asked than the common report 
that he had killed more than thirty grizzly bears. 
I have never, in the city or in the wilderness, 
met a better man than my true-hearted friend, 
Henry Chatillon. 

After a few days of varied discomforts, chief 
of which were insects and thunderstorms, they 
came to the Big Blue River, which they crossed 
on a raft, and then they struck the regular trail 
of the Oregon emigrants. Soon they came upon 
a party of them. 

These were the first emigrants that we had 
overtaken, although we had found abundant and 
melancholy traces of their progress throughout 
the course of the journey. Sometimes we passed 



152 FRANCIS PARKMAN 






the grave of one who had sickened and died on 
the way. The earth was usually torn up, and 
covered thickly with wolf-tracks. Some had es- 
caped this violation. One morning a piece of 
plank, standing upright on the summit of a 
grassy hill, attracted our notice, and riding up 
to it, we found the following words very roughly 
traced upon it, apparently with a red-hot iron : — 

Mary Ellis 
Died May 7th, 1845. 
Aged two mouths. 

Such tokens were of common occurrence. 

Here a small emigrant train was invited by 
the Englishmen to join company with them, 
much to the disgust of Parkman and Shaw, as 
the emigrant wagons drawn by oxen must ne- 
cessarily hinder their progress. The emigrants 
themselves, however, were good fellows, and all 
journeyed on in amity ; in one respect the addi- 
tion was an advantage, for every night two men 
mounted guard, and with a greater number each 
man's turn came round less frequently. Park- 
man rather enjoyed his watches in spite of loss 
of sleep and rest. 

A few days' journey brought them to the top 
of some sand-hills, from which they could see 
the valley of the Platte. 

We all drew rein, and sat joyfully looking 
down upon the prospect. It was right welcome, 
— strange, too, and striking to the imagination ; 



OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 153 

and yet it had not one picturesque or beauti- 
ful feature ; nor had it any of the features of 
grandeur, other than its vast extent, its soli- 
tude, and its wildness. For league after league a 
plain as level as a lake was outspread beneath 
us; here and there. the Platte, divided into a 
dozen thread-like sluices, was traversing it, and 
an occasional clump of wood, rising in the midst 
like a shadowy island, relieved the monotony of 
the waste. No living thing was moving through- 
out the vast landscape, except the lizards that 
darted over the sand and through the rank grass 
and prickly pears at our feet. [From here their 
course lay westward through a long, narrow, 
sandy plain, flanked by two lines of sand-hills, 
and stretching nearly to the foot of the Rocky 
Mountains. Before and behind them the plain 
spread level to the horizon.] Sometimes it glared 
in the sun, an expanse of hot bare sand; some- 
times it was veiled by long coarse grass. Skulls 
and whitening bones of buffalo were scattered 
everywhere ; the ground was tracked by myriads 
of them. . . . The naked landscape is, of itself, 
dreary and monotonous enough; and yet the 
wild beasts and wild men that frequent the val- 
ley of the Platte make it a scene of interest and 
excitement to the traveler. Of those who have 
journeyed there, scarcely one, perhaps, fails to 
look back with fond regret to his horse and his 
rifle. [Here they made acquaintance with the 
Pawnee Indians, an idle, thieving tribe. Many 
stories of their depredations were current, and 
the travelers kept careful watch. The weather 
was most fitful.] This very morning, for in- 



154 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

stance, was close and sultry, the sun rising with 
a faint oppressive heat ; when suddenly darkness 
gathered in the west, and a furious blast of sleet 
and hail drove full in our faces, icy cold, and 
urged with such demoniac vehemence that it felt 
like a storm of needles. It was curious to see 
the horses ; they faced about in extreme dis- 
pleasure, holding their tails like whipped dogs, 
and shivering as the angry gusts, howling louder 
than a concert of wolves, swept over us. Wright's 
[the Englishmen's muleteer] long train of mules 
came sweeping round before the storm, like a 
flight of snow-birds driven by a winter tempest. 
. . . The thing was too good to last long ; and 
the instant the puffs of wind subsided we pitched 
our tents, and remained in camp for the rest of 
a gloomy and lowering day. 

[The even tenor of the journey was soon broken 
by the presence of buffalo. Their tracks had 
been frequent for some days, and a few stray 
bulls had been shot, but before this no herd had 
been seen.] One day somebody cried, " Buffalo, 
buffalo ! " It was but a grim old bull, roaming 
the prairie by himself in misanthropic seclusion ; 
but there might be more behind the hills. Dread- 
ing the monotony and languor of the camp, Shaw 
and I saddled our horses, buckled our holsters 
in their places, and set out with Henry Chatillon 
in search of the game. Henry, not intending to 
take part in the chase, but merely conducting 
us, carried his rifle with him, while we left ours 
behind as incumbrances. We rode for some five 
or six miles, and saw no living thing but wolves, 
snakes, and prairie-dogs. . . . The ground was 



OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 155 

none of the best for a race, and grew worse as 
we proceeded ; indeed, it soon became desperately 
bad, consisting of abrupt hills and deep hol- 
lows, cut by frequent ravines not easy to pass. 
At length, a mile in advance, we saw a band of 
bulls. Some were scattered grazing over a green 
declivity, while the rest were crowded together 
in the wide hollow below. Making a circuit, to 
keep out of sight, we rode towards them, until 
we ascended a hill within a furlong of them, be- 
yond which nothing intervened that could pos- 
sibly screen us from their view. We dismounted 
behind the ridge, just out of sight, drew our 
saddle-girths, examined our pistols, and mount- 
ing again, rode over the hill and descended at a 
canter towards them, bending close to our horses' 
necks. Instantly they took the alarm ; those on 
the hill descended, those below gathered into a 
mass, and the whole got into motion, shouldering 
each other along at a clumsy gallop. We fol- 
lowed, spurring our horses to full speed ; and as 
the herd rushed, crowding and trampling in ter- 
ror through an opening in the hills, we were close 
at their heels, half suffocated by the clouds of 
dust. But as we drew near, their alarm and speed 
increased ; our horses, being new to the work, 
showed signs of the utmost fear, bounding vio- 
lently aside as we approached, and refusing to 
enter among the herd. The buffalo now broke 
into several small bodies, scampering over the 
hills in different directions, and I lost sight of 
Shaw ; neither of us knew where the other had 
gone. Old Pontiac [Parkman's horse] ran like a 
frantic elephant uphill and down hill, his pon- 



156 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

derous hoofs striking the prairies like sledge- 
hammers. He showed a curious mixture of 
eagerness and terror, straining to overtake the 
panic-stricken herd, but constantly recoiling in 
dismay as we drew near. The fugitives, indeed, 
offered no very attractive spectacle, with their 
shaggy manes and the tattered remnants of their 
last winter's hair covering their backs in irregu- 
lar shreds and patches, and flying off in the wind 
as they ran. At length I urged my horse close 
behind a bull, and after trying in vain by blows 
and spurring to bring him alongside, I fired from 
this disadvantageous position. At the report 
Pontiac swerved so much that I was again 
thrown a little behind the game. The bullet, 
entering too much in the rear, failed to disable 
the bull, for a buffalo requires to be shot at par- 
ticular points or he will certainly escape. The 
herd ran up a hill, and I followed in pursuit. 
As Pontiac rushed headlong down on the other 
side, I saw Shaw and Henry descending the 
hollow on the right at a leisurely gallop ; and in 
front the buffalo were just disappearing behind 
the crest of the next hill, their short tails erect, 
and their hoofs twinkling through a cloud of 
dust. 

At that moment I heard Shaw and Henry shout- 
ing to me ; but the muscles of a stronger arm than 
mine could not have checked at once the furious 
course of Pontiac, whose mouth was as insensible 
as leather. Added to this, I rode him that morn- 
ing with a snaffle, having the day before, for the 
benefit of my other horse, unbuckled from my bri- 
dle the curb which I commonly used. A stronger 



OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 157 

and hardier brute never trod the prairie ; but the 
novel sight of the buffalo filled him with terror, 
and when at full speed he was almost incontrol- 
lable. Gaining the top of the ridge, I saw nothing 
of the buffalo ; they had all vanished amid the 
intricacies of the hills and hollows. Reloading 
my pistols in the best way I could, I galloped on 
until I saw them again scuttling along at the base 
of the hill, their panic somewhat abated. Down 
went old Pontiac among them, scattering them 
to the right and left ; and then we had another 
long chase. About a dozen bulls were before us 
scouring over the hills, rushing down the decliv- 
ities with tremendous weight and impetuosity, 
and then laboring with a weary gallop upward. 
Still Pontiac, in spite of spurring and beating, 
would not close with them. One bull at length 
fell a little behind the rest, and by dint of much 
effort I urged my horse within six or eight yards 
of his side. His back was darkened with sweat ; 
he was panting heavily, while his tongue lolled 
out a foot from his jaws. Gradually I came up 
abreast of him, urging Pontiac with leg and rein 
nearer to his side, when suddenly he did what 
buffalo in such circumstances will always do, — 
he slackened his gallop, and turning towards us, 
with an aspect of mingled rage and distress, low- 
ered his huge, shaggy head for a charge. Pontiac, 
with a snort, leaped aside in terror, nearly throw- 
ing me to the ground, as I was wholly unprepared 
for such an evolution. I raised my pistol in a 
passion to strike him in the head, but think- 
ing better of it, fired the bullet after the bull, 
who had resumed his flight ; then drew rein, and 



158 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

determined to join my companions. It was high 
time. The breath blew hard from Poiitiac's nos- 
trils, and the sweat rolled in big drops down his 
sides ; I felt myself as if drenched in warm water. 
... I looked about for some indications to show 
me where I was, and what course I ought to pur- 
sue. I might as well have looked for landmarks 
in the midst of the ocean. How many miles I 
had run, or in what direction, I had no idea ; 
and around me the prairie was rolling in steep 
swells and pitches, without a single distinctive 
feature to guide me. I had a little compass hung 
at my neck ; and ignorant that the Platte at 
this point diverged considerably from its east- 
erly course, I thought that by keeping to the 
northward I should certainly reach it. So I 
turned and rode about two hours in that direc- 
tion. The prairie changed as I advanced, soften- 
ing away into easier undulations, but nothing 
like the Platte appeared, nor any sign of a 
human being : the same wild, endless expanse 
lay around me still ; and to all appearance I was 
as far from my object as ever. I began now to 
think myself in danger of being lost, and, rein- 
ing in my horse, summoned the scanty share of 
woodcraft that I possessed (if that term be appli- 
cable on the prairie) to extricate me. It occurred 
to me that the buffalo might prove my best guides. 
I soon found one of the paths made by them in 
their passage to the river ; it ran nearly at right 
angles to my course ; but turning my horse's head 
in the direction it indicated, his freer gait and 
erected ears assured me that I was right. . . . 
Being now free from anxiety, I was at leisure 



OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 159 

to observe minutely the objects around me ; and 
here for the first time I noticed insects wholly 
different from any of the varieties found far- 
ther eastward. Gaudy butterflies fluttered about 
my horse's head ; strangely formed beetles, glit- 
tering with metallic lustre, were crawling upon 
plants that I had never seen before ; multitudes 
of lizards, too, were darting like lightning over 
the sand. 

He followed the buffalo path until at last he 
came in sight of the river, and then with the aid 
of Pontiac he found the emigrant trail, and see- 
ing that his party had not passed he turned to 
meet them. 

Having been slightly ill on leaving camp in 
the morning, six or seven hours of rough riding 
had fatigued me extremely. I soon stopped, there- 
fore, flung my saddle on the ground, and with my 
head resting on it, and my horse's trail-rope tied 
loosely to my arm, lay waiting the arrival of the 
party, speculating meanwhile on the extent of the 
injuries Pontiac had received. 

Soon afterwards Shaw and the mule-team came 
up, and the party resumed their way. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE OGILLALLAH 






On June 8th the party forded the South Fork of 
the Platte. Here they parted from their com- 
panions. The Englishmen affected authority to 
decide when and where they should encamp, and 
were domineering in their bearing ; so Parkman 
and Shaw, careless of the security afforded by 
numbers, took a somewhat abrupt leave, and, 
having less baggage, soon left the others behind. 
They pushed on along the North Fork of the 
Platte without adventures, beyond meeting a Da- 
kota village wandering along in rude procession 
under the command of Old Smoke, and crossed 
what is now the boundary between Nebraska 
and Wyoming. They forded Laramie Creek, 
the southern of two streams that unite just east 
of Fort Laramie to form the North Fork of the 
Platte, and, a short distance beyond, arrived at 
the fort. This post was occupied, not by a gar- 
rison of United States troops, as the name might 
suggest, for in fact the nearest soldiers were 
seven hundred miles to the east, but by servants 



THE OGILLALLAH 161 

of the American Fur Company, who bought 
skins and furs of the trappers and Indians. The 
scene was like that in a French fort on the fron- 
tier a hundred years before. The fort itself, 
built of bricks dried in the sun, was oblong in 
shape. Its walls were about fifteen feet high, 
and were fortified at two of the corners by 
blockhouses built of clay. Within, the area was 
divided by a partition ; on one side was a court 
surrounded by storerooms, offices, and bed- 
rooms ; on the other side was an inclosure where 
the horses and mules were shut in at night. The 
inhabitants were a motley crew. There were 
the servants of the company, men of French Ca- 
nadian blood, in breeding and education not 
much above their friends the Indians, who loafed 
about with solemn faces in white buffalo robes, 
or dozed in the sunshine. There were gayly 
painted squaws in large numbers, a troop of 
mongrel children tumbling about, and half-breed 
trappers, who had either just come back from 
a trapping expedition or were about to start. 
Parkman and Shaw were hospitably received. 
The chamber, ordinarily occupied by the bour- 
geois [the " boss "] of the post, who was absent, 
was put at their disposal. Its furniture was a 
bare bedstead, two chairs, a chest of drawers, 
and a pail ; buffalo robes were stretched on the 
floor for beds, as the bedstead was only an orna- 



1G2 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

ment. On the wall, side by side, hung a crucifix 
and a fresh scalp. The food consisted of dried 
buffalo meat, " an excellent thing for strength- 
ening the teeth," and cakes of bread. Here they 
stayed several days, observing the ways and cus- 
toms of their hosts and of the Indians. Old 
Smoke's village had encamped near by, and they 
used to go there and spend most of their even- 
ings. 

Parkman was very glad to observe the Indian 
at home, but he desired with greater eagerness 
to study him on the warpath ; for this an op- 
portunity seemed to be at hand. The son of an 
Ogillallah chief, The Whirlwind, had been killed 
by the Snake Indians ; and in revenge The 
Whirlwind had roused all the Dakota villages 
within three hundred miles to take part in a 
campaign against the Snakes. The Ogillallah In- 
dians belong to the Dakota or Sioux tribe, and 
their kith and kin, having also grievances of 
their own against the Snakes, acknowledged their 
duty to punish the injury, and many villages, 
making altogether five thousand persons or more, 
were already on the march to the appointed 
meeting ground on the river Platte. There they 
were to celebrate the solemn rites which in In- 
dian usage precede a campaign, and then the war- 
riors, one thousand strong, were to start on the 
warpath. " I was greatly rejoiced to hear of it. I 



THE OGILLALLAH 163 

had come into the country chiefly with a view of 
observing the Indian character. To accomplish 
my purpose it was necessary to live in the midst 
of them, and become, as it were, one of them. I 
proposed to join a village, and make myself an 
inmate of one of their lodges." The first plan 
had been to join Old Smoke's village, but Henry 
Chatillon, the guide, was very anxious to go to 
The Whirlwind's village to see his squaw, who 
belonged to that village, and was there very ill, 
so Parkman changed his plan to accord with 
Chatillon's desire. Parkman was not well he 
says : — 

I had been slightly ill for several weeks, but 
on the third night after reaching Fort Laramie 
a violent pain awoke me, and I found myself 
attacked by the same disorder that occasioned 
such heavy losses to the army on the Rio Grande 
[Mexican war]. In a day and a half I was re- 
duced to extreme weakness, so that I could not 
walk without pain and effort. Having no medi- 
cal adviser, nor any choice of diet, I resolved to 
throw myself upon Providence for recovery, 
using, without regard to the disorder, any por- 
tion of strength that might remain to me. So 
on the .twentieth of June we set out from 
Port Laramie to meet The Whirlwind's village. 
Though aided by the high-bowed "mountain- 
saddle," I could scarcely keep my seat on horse- 
back. 

They halted at a spot on Laramie Creek which 



164: FRANCIS PARKMAN 

The Whirlwind must necessarily pass on his way 
to the meeting place, and there pitched their 
camp to await his coming. Days went by, but 
the dilatory Whirlwind did not come. 

If our camp was not altogether safe [a troop 
of hostile Indians had passed within rifle-shot, but 
had missed them on account of a heavy mist], still 
it was comfortable enough ; at least it was so to 
Shaw, for I was tormented with illness and vexed 
by the delay in the accomplishment of my designs. 
When a respite in my disorder gave me some 
returning strength, I rode out well armed upon 
the prairie, or bathed with Shaw in the stream, 
or waged a petty warfare with the inhabitants 
of a neighboring prairie-dog village. Around our 
fire at night we employed ourselves in inveighing 
against the fickleness and inconstancy of Indians, 
and execrating The Whirlwind and all his crew. 

Parkman's impatience could brook the delay 
no longer, so he rode back to the fort, which was 
about eighteen miles distant, to learn what news 
he could of the war. At the fort, to his surprise, 
he found The Whirlwind, whom the traders, in 
their zeal to prevent any detriment to trade, were 
urging to abandon the warpath. The Whirlwind 
was fickle, and it seemed likely that the traders 
would persuade him. Parkman returned to his 
camp in great vexation, for his philanthropy, as 
he said, was no match for his curiosity to see the 
Indian on the warpath ; but he tried with poor 



THE OGILLALLAH 165 

success to console himself with the thought that 
he avoided a very fair chance of being plun- 
dered, and perhaps stabbed or shot into the 
bargain. In a few days, however, they were 
cheered by the arrival of a young chief from The 
Whirlwind's village, who stated that The Whirl- 
wind had not been persuaded to abandon the war- 
path, and was on his way to the meeting place, 
and would arrive at the spot where Parkman was 
encamped in two days ; and so it came to pass. 
Parties of Indians arrived by twos and threes, 
and then the main village in disorderly array 
straggled to the camping ground, and pitched 
their lodges, above one hundred and fifty in num- 
ber. Here they lingered for several days ; Park- 
man made friends with the warriors and learned 
their several histories. 

After tarrying at this place long enough to 
allow a proper period for vacillation, The Whirl- 
wind made up his mind not to repair to the meet- 
ing place of the war-party, but to cross the Black 
Hills and proceed to the hunting grounds be- 
yond, so that his people might secure enough 
buffalo meat for the coming season, and fresh 
skins for their lodges. When that should have 
been done, The Whirlwind proposed to send a 
band of warriors against the enemy. Parkman 
and Shaw held a council together whether to go 
to the meeting place in the hope of finding other 



16G FRANCIS PARKMAN 

bands of Dakota there, or to abide with The 
Whirlwind's village and share its fortunes. They 
chose the latter course, and started on July first 
with the Indians, but before they had ridden 
many miles a message came from a fur trader, 
Bisonette, whom they had met at the fort, saying 
that he was going to the meeting place and 
urging them to go, too ; so they changed their 
minds, parted company with The Whirlwind, who 
was westward bound, and turned their horses' 
heads to the north. On the third day they 
reached the appointed place, but found neither 
Indians nor Bisonette. They dismounted and 
relieved their indignation with tobacco and criti- 
cism of the whole aboriginal race in America. 

For myself, I was vexed beyond measure ; as 
I well knew that a slight aggravation of my dis- 
order would render this false step irrevocable, 
and make it impossible to accomplish effectually 
the object which had led me an arduous journey of 
between three and four thousand miles. . . . After 
supper that evening, as we sat round the fire, I 
proposed to Shaw to wait one day longer, in hopes 
of Bisonette's arrival, and if he should not come, 
to send the [muleteer] with the cart and baggage 
back to Fort Laramie, while we ourselves followed 
The Whirlwind's village, and attempted to over- 
take it as it passed the mountains. Shaw, not 
having the same motive for hunting Indians that 
I had, was averse to the plan ; I therefore re- 
solved to go alone. This design I adopted very 



THE OGILLALLAH 167 

unwillingly, for I knew that in the present state 
of my health the attempt would be painful and 
hazardous. I hoped that Bisonette would appear 
in the course of the following day, and bring us 
some information by which to direct our course. 

But Bisonette did not come, though Shaw took 
a day's ride to find him, and the next morning 
Parkman made ready to start. He had exchanged 
Pontiac for a fleet little mare, Pauline, and all 
his baggage was tied by leather thongs to her 
saddle. In front of the black, high-bowed moun- 
tain-saddle were fastened holsters with heavy 
pistols. A pair of saddle-bags, a blanket tightly 
rolled, a small parcel of Indian presents tied up 
in buffalo skin, a leather bag of flour, and a 
smaller one of tea, were all secured behind, and 
a long trail-rope was wound round her neck. 
Raymond had a strong black mule equipped in 
a similar manner. They crammed their powder- 
horns to the throat and mounted. Raymond was 
a French Canadian trapper hired as guide the 
week before. " I will meet you at Fort Laramie 
on the first of August," said Parkman to Shaw. 
So they parted; Parkman and Raymond rode 
off in the direction taken by The Whirlwind's 
village, and Shaw after some misadventures re- 
turned, under the compulsion of ivy-poison, to 
the fort. 



CHAPTER XVI 

A ROUGH JOURNEY 

Parkman's way led across wide plains and rough 
ridges of hills, all cracked and split with fissure 
and ravine, and dazzling white under the burn- 
ing sun ; no trees cheered the waste, except a 
stray pine here and there. But at sunset they 
came upon a line of thick bushes which clothed 
the banks of a little stream ; here they dis- 
mounted, made their fire, and, wrapped in their 
blankets, fell fast asleep, in complete disregard 
of howling wolves. In the early morning the 
animals were grazing and Raymond had gone 
for a shot at an antelope, when on a sudden 
Pauline broke her hobbles and galloped off, and 
the mule bounded after her as best he could on 
his hobbled legs. Raymond, still near enough to 
hear Parkman's call, ran in pursuit, and soon all 
three were out of sight, leaving Parkman, too 
weak to join in the chase, to his meditations. 

It seemed scarcely possible that the animals 
could be recovered. If they were not, my situa- 
tion was one of serious difficulty. Shaw, when I 



A ROUGH JOURNEY 169 

left him, had decided to move that morning, but 
whither he had not determined. To look for him 
would be a vain attempt. Fort Laramie was 
forty miles distant, and I could not walk a mile 
without great effort. Not then having learned 
the philosophy of yielding to disproportionate 
obstacles, I resolved, come what would, to con- 
tinue the pursuit of the Indians. Only one plan 
occurred to me : this was, to send Raymond to 
the fort with an order for more horses, while I 
remained on the spot, awaiting his return, which 
might take place within three days. But to re- 
main stationary and alone for three days in a 
country full of dangerous Indians was not the 
most flattering of prospects. Resolving these 
matters, I grew hungry; and as our stock of 
provisions, except four or five pounds of flour, 
was by this time exhausted, I left the camp to 
see what game I could find. 

A further danger was that Raymond might 
catch the animals and not return. But Raymond 
was faithful ; after a chase of ten miles and 
more, he caught the fugitives, and Parkman was 
able to start again upon his westward course in 
the afternoon, but they were not destined to 
make much progress that day. A tremendous 
storm deluged them. After a time a blue rift 
appeared in the clouds, and, growing larger, 
made room for a rainbow ; the sun shone warm 
on the plain, and revealed a belt of woods in 
front, which proffered a good place for camp. 



170 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Raymond kindled a fire with great difficulty. 
The animals turned eagerly to feed on the soft 
rich grass, while I, wrapping myself in my 
blanket, lay down and gazed on the evening 
landscape. The mountains, whose stern features 
had frowned upon us so gloomily, seemed lighted 
up with a benignant smile, and the green, wav- 
ing undulations of the plain were gladdened with 
warm sunshine. Wet, ill, and wearied as I was, 
my heart grew lighter at the view, and I drew 
from it an augury of good. 

The next day they struck Laramie Creek, and 
following the stream found marks of the Indians 
at the point where they had forded the river. 
Delighted to find the trail, Parkman and Ray- 
mond dined on haunch of antelope, and in high 
spirits made ready to follow ; but as Parkman 
was saddling the exhausted Pauline, she stag- 
gered and fell. With an effort she regained her 
feet, and was able to carry her master at a slow 
pace. The trail was clear at one spot where ant- 
hills held the dint of trailing lodge-poles, at 
another it disappeared on flinty ground ; then it 
became visible again where the leaves of the 
prickly pear showed bruises. Towards evening 
they lost the trail completely, but far away, a 
little to their right, in a black valley at the foot 
of Mount Laramie, which rose in purple dark- 
ness above its fellow peaks, they could see volumes 
of smoke curling upward. At first they were 



A ROUGH JOURNEY 171 

inclined to ride thither, but reflection dissuaded 
them, and they afterward had reason to believe 
that the smoke was raised as a decoy by hostile 
Crows. That night they lay beside Laramie 
Creek, and at daybreak Parkman plunged in, 
and for the moment felt the tingling of health ; 
but the sensation was momentary ; as soon as he 
was in the saddle, he says, " I hung as usual in 
my seat, scarcely able to hold myself erect." 

From where they were they could see a pass 
in the mountain wall, which gave cause to think 
that the Indians had gone through it. 

We reached the gap, which was like a deep 
notch cut into the mountain ridge, and here we 
soon found an ant-hill furrowed with the mark 
of a lodge-pole. This was quite enough ; there 
could be no doubt now. As we rode on, the open- 
ing growing narrower, the Indians had been com- 
pelled to march in closer order, and the traces 
became numerous and distinct. The gap termi- 
nated in a rocky gateway, leading into a rough 
and steep defile, between two precipitous moun- 
tains. Here grass and weeds were bruised to frag- 
ments by the throng that had passed through. 
We moved slowly over the rocks, up the passage, 
and in this toilsome manner advanced for an hour 
or two, bare precipices, hundreds of feet high, 
shooting up on either hand. Raymond, with his 
hardy mule, was a few rods before me when we 
came to the foot of an ascent steeper than the 
rest, and which I trusted might be the highest 



172 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

point of the defile. Pauline strained upward for 
a few yards, moaning and stumbling, and then 
came to a dead stop, unable to proceed farther. 
I dismounted, and attempted to lead her; but 
my own exhausted strength soon gave out, so I 
loosened the trail-rope from her neck, and tying 
it round my arm, crawled up on my hands and 
knees. I gained the top, totally spent, the sweat- 
drops trickling from my forehead. Pauline stood 
like a statue by my side, her shadow falling upon 
the scorching rock ; and in this shade, for there 
was no other, I lay for some time, scarcely able 
to move a limb. All around, the black crags, 
sharp as needles at the top, stood baking in the 
sun, without tree or bush or blade of grass to 
cover their nakedness. The whole scene seemed 
parched with a pitiless, insufferable heat. [After 
a pause Parkman was able to mount again, and 
they descended the defile on the farther side ; 
here they were cheered by a clump of trees, a 
fringe of grass, and a little icy brook. At the 
foot of the mountains lay a plain, a half dozen 
miles across and bad riding, and beyond the 
plain there were thick woods and more moun- 
tains ; through these a rocky passage wound 
among gigantic cliffs and led into a second 
plain. Here they stopped to eat.] When we 
had finished our meal Raymond struck fire, and 
lighting his pipe, sat down at the foot of a tree 
to smoke. For some time I observed him puffing 
away with a face of unusual solemnity. Then 
slowly taking the pipe from his lips, he looked 
up and remarked that we had better not go any 
farther. " Why not ? " asked I. He said that the 



A ROUGH JOURNEY 173 

country was become very dangerous, that we 
were entering the range of the Snakes, Arapa- 
hoes, and Gros-ventre Blackfeet, and that if any 
of their wandering parties should meet us, it 
would cost us our lives ; but he added, with 
blunt fidelity, that he would go anywhere I 
wished. I told him to bring up the animals, 
and mounting them we proceeded again. I con- 
fess that, as we moved forward, the prospect 
seemed but a doubtful one. I would have given 
the world for my ordinary elasticity of body and 
mind, and for a horse of such strength and spirit 
as the journey required. Closer and closer the 
rocks gathered round us, growing taller and 
steeper, and pressing more and more upon our 
path. We entered at length a defile which, in 
its way, I never have seen rivaled. The moun- 
tain was cracked from top to bottom, and we 
were creeping along the bottom of the fissure, in 
dampness and gloom, with the clink of hoofs on 
the loose shingly rocks, and the hoarse murmur- 
ing of a petulant brook which kept us company. 
. . . Looking up, we could see a narrow ribbon 
of bright blue sky between the dark edges of the 
opposing cliffs. This did not last long. The pas- 
sage soon widened, and sunbeams found their 
way down, flashing upon the black waters. The 
defile would spread to many rods in width ; 
then we would be moving again in darkness. 
The passage seemed about four miles long, and 
before we reached the end of it the unshod hoofs 
of our animals were broken, and their legs cut 
by the sharp stones. Issuing from the mountain, 
we found another plain. All around it stood a 



174 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

circle of precipices that seemed the impersona- 
tion of Silence and Solitude. 

From this amphitheatre there was but one 
outlet, over a low hill, and beyond that the 
prairie spread wide and desolate. Here they 
dismounted for the night and dined on their 
last bit of antelope steak. Parkman was about 
to shoot a rabbit, in order to replenish their 
larder, but Raymond out of not unnecessary 
caution stopped him, for fear lest the report 
might attract visitors. 

That night for the first time we considered 
that the danger to which we were exposed was 
of a somewhat serious character ; and to those 
who are unacquainted with Indians it may seem 
strange that our chief apprehensions arose from 
the supposed proximity of the people whom we 
intended to visit. Had any straggling party of 
these faithful friends caught sight of us from 
the hilltop, they would probably have returned 
in the night to plunder us of our horses, and 
perhaps of our scalps. But the prairie is unfa- 
vorable to nervousness ; and I presume that 
neither Raymond nor I thought twice of the 
matter that evening. [The next day they lost 
the trail again on a broad flat plain, with no- 
thing in front but a long line of hills. Raymond 
became discouraged.] " Now," said he, " we had 
better turn round." But as Raymond's bourgeois 
thought otherwise, we descended the hill and be- 
gan to cross the plain. We had come so far that 



A ROUGH JOURNEY 175 

neither Pauline's limbs nor my own could carry 
me back to Fort Laramie. I considered that 
the lines of expediency and inclination tallied 
exactly, and that the most prudent course was 
to keep forward. 

On they went, and drearily climbed the far- 
off hills ; from the top Parkman discerned a few 
dark spots moving, which he took to be buffalo, 
but Raymond shouted " Horses ! " and galloped 
on, lashing his mule to its best pace, and in a 
few minutes, standing in a circle, they saw the 
lodges of the Ogillallah. " Never, says Parkman, 
"did the heart of wanderer more gladden at the 
sight of home than did mine at the sight of that 
Indian camp." 

There, after the customary ceremony of shak- 
ing hands with everybody, the first business was 
to choose a host, and after inquiry Parkman de- 
cided to partake of Big Crow's hospitality. 

So Raymond and I rode up to the entrance 
of Big Crow's lodge. A squaw came out imme- 
diately and took our horses. I put aside the 
leather flap that covered the low opening, and, 
stooping, entered the Big Crow's dwelling. There 
I could see the chief in the dim light, seated at 
one side, on a pile of buffalo robes. He greeted 
me with a guttural " How, cola ! " I requested 
Reynal [a Canadian acquaintance hunting with 
the Indians] to tell him that Raymond and I were 
come to live with him. The Big Crow gave an- 



176 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

other low exclamation. The announcement may- 
seem intrusive, but, in fact, every Indian in the 
village would have deemed himself honored that 
white men should give such preference to his hos- 
pitality. The squaw spread a buffalo robe for us 
in the guest's place at the head of the lodge. Our 
saddles were brought in, and scarcely were we 
seated upon them before the place was thronged 
with Indians, crowding in to see us. The Big 
Crow produced his pipe and filled it with the 
mixture of tobacco and shongsasha, or red willow 
bark. Round and round it passed, and a lively 
conversation went forward. Meanwhile a squaw 
placed before the two guests a wooden bowl of 
boiled buffalo-meat ; but unhappily this was not 
the only banquet destined to be inflicted ou us. 
One after another, boys and young squaws thrust 
their heads in at the opening, to invite us to 
various feasts in different parts of the village. 
For half an hour and more we were actively en- 
gaged in passing from lodge to lodge, tasting in 
each of the bowl of meat set before us, and inhal- 
ing a whiff or two from our entertainer's pipe. 

The Whirlwind was not there ; he had not 
come, rumor said, from fear of going so far into 
the enemy's country, for the village was now 
encamped on the Snake hunting ground ; the 
main body of the community had disregarded 
his authority, and were on their way to hunt the 
buffalo. 

The next day brought with it a return of hos- 
pitality. 



A ROUGH JOURNEY 177 

I .intended that day to give the Indians a 
feast, by way of conveying a favorable impres- 
sion of my character and dignity ; and a white 
dog is the dish which the customs of the Dakota 
prescribe for all occasions of formality and im- 
portance. I consulted Reynal : he soon discovered 
that an old woman in the next lodge was owner 
of the white dog [a big dog on which Parkman 
had cast his eye]. I took a gaudy cotton hand- 
kerchief, and, laying it on the ground, arranged 
some vermilion, beads, and other trinkets upon it. 
Then the old squaw was summoned. I pointed to 
the dog and to the handkerchief. She gave a 
scream of delight, snatched up the prize, and van- 
ished with it into her lodge. For a few more trifles, 
I engaged the services of two other squaws, each 
of whom took the white dog by one of his paws, 
and led him away behind the lodges. Having 
killed him they threw him into a fire to singe ; 
then chopped him up and put him into two large 
kettles to boil. Meanwhile I told Raymond to 
fry in buffalo-fat what little flour we had left, 
and also to make a kettle of tea as an additional 
luxury. The Big Crow's squaw was briskly at 
work sweeping out the lodge for the approaching 
festivity. I confided to my host himself the task 
of inviting the guests, thinking that I might 
thereby shift from my own shoulders the odium 
of neglect and oversight. When feasting is in 
question one hour of the day serves an Indian as 
well as another. My entertainment came off at 
about eleven o'clock. At that hour Reynal and 
Raymond walked across the area of the village, 
to the admiration of the inhabitants, carrying the 



178 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

two kettles of dog meat slung on a pole between 
them. These they placed in the centre of the 
lodge, and then went back for the bread and the 
tea. Meanwhile I had put on a pair of brilliant 
moccasins, and substituted for my old buckskin 
frock a coat which I had brought with me in view 
of such public occasions. I also made careful use 
of the razor, an operation which no man will neg- 
lect who desires to gain the good opinion of In- 
dians. Thus attired, I seated myself between Rey- 
nal and Raymond at the head of the lodge. Only 
a few minutes elapsed before all the guests had 
come in and were seated on the ground, wedged 
together in a close circle. Each brought with him 
a wooden bowl to hold his share of the repast. 
When all were assembled, two of the officials, 
called " soldiers " by the white men, came for- 
ward with ladles made of the horn of the Rocky 
Mountain sheep, and began to distribute the 
feast, assigning a double share to the old men 
and chiefs. The dog vanished with astonishing 
celerity, and each guest turned his dish bottom 
upward to show that all was gone. Then the 
bread was distributed in its turn, and finally the 
tea. As the "soldiers" poured it out into the same 
wooden bowls that had served for the substantial 
part of the meal, I thought it had a particularly 
curious and uninviting color. " Oh," said Reynal, 
" there was not tea enough, so I stirred some soot 
in the kettle, to make it look strong ! " Fortu- 
nately an Indian's palate is not very discriminat- 
ing. The tea was well sweetened, and that was 
all they cared for. Now, the feast being over, the 
time for speechmaking was come. The Big Crow 



A ROUGH JOURNEY 179 

produced a flat piece of wood, on which he cut 
up tobacco and shongsasha, and mixed them in 
due proportions. The pipes were filled and passed 
from hand to hand around the company. Then 
I began my speech, each sentence being inter- 
preted by Reynal as I went on, and echoed by 
the whole audience with the usual exclamations 
of assent and approval. As nearly as I can recol- 
lect, it was as follows : " I had come," I told them, 
" from a country so far distant that at the rate 
they travel, they could not reach it in a year." — 
" How ! How ! " — " There the Meneaska (white 
men) were more numerous than the blades of 
grass on the prairie. The squaws were far more 
beautiful than any they had ever seen, and all 
the men were brave warriors." — " How ! How ! 
How ! " — I was assailed by twinges of conscience 
as I uttered these last words. But I recovered 
myself and began again. " While I was living in 
the Meneaska lodges, I had heard of the Ogil- 
lallah, how great and brave a nation they were, 
how they loved the whites, and how well they 
could hunt the buffalo and strike their enemies. 
I resolved to come and see if all that I heard was 
true." — "How! How! How!" — " As I had 
come on horseback through the mountains, I had 
been able to bring them only a few presents." — 
" How ! " — " But I had enough tobacco to give 
them all a small piece. They might smoke it, and 
see how much better it was than the tobacco which 
they got from the traders." — " How ! How ! 
How ! " — "I had plenty of powder, lead, knives, 
and tobacco at Fort Laramie. These I was anx- 
ious to give them, and if any of them should come 



180 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

to the fort before I went away, I would make 
them handsome presents ! " — " How ! How ! 
How ! How ! " Raymond then cut up and distri- 
buted among them two or three pounds of tobacco, 
and old Mene-Seela [the principal chief] began to 
make a reply. It was long, but the following was 
the pith of it. " He had always loved the whites. 
They were the wisest people on earth. He be- 
lieved they could do anything, and he was always 
glad when any of them came to live in the Ogil- 
lallah lodges. It was true I had not made them 
many presents, but the reason of it was plain. 
It was clear that I liked them, or I never should 
have come so far to find their village ! " Other 
speeches were made. A short silence followed, 
and then the old man (Mene-Seela) struck up a 
discordant chant, which I was told was a song of 
thanks for the entertainment I had given them. 
" Now," said he, " let us go, and give the white 
men a chance to breathe." So the company all 
dispersed into the open air, and for some time the 
old chief was walking round the village, singing 
his song in praise of the feast, after the custom of 
the nation. 



CHAPTER XVII 

LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 

After some indecision, for the village was with- 
out a leader, — even The Whirlwind when he was 
present had no authority, — the Indians set for- 
ward again for the hunting fields. The line of 
march was always highly picturesque, painted 
warriors riding gayly, iron-tipped lances glitter- 
ing in the sun, packhorses heavily laden with 
bundles and babies, or dragging lodge poles, po- 
nies ridden by grinning young squaws, old men 
on foot wrapped in white buffalo robes, slim 
boys and girls, barking dogs, all apparently led 
by the genius of confusion. It was always as 
good as a play to Parkman, though he was 
hardly in fit state of body to enjoy a pageant. 

At our encampment that afternoon I was at- 
tacked anew by my old disorder. In half an hour 
the strength that I had been gaining for a week 
past had vanished again, and I became like a 
man in a dream. But at sunset I lay down in 
the Big Crow's lodge and slept, totally uncon- 
scious till the morning. The first thing that 



182 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

awakened me was a hoarse flapping over my 
head, and a sudden light that poured in upon 
me. The camp was breaking up, and the squaws 
were moving the covering from the lodge. I 
arose and shook off my blanket with the feeling 
of perfect health ; but scarcely had I gained my 
feet when a sense of my helpless condition was 
once more forced upon me, and I found myself 
scarcely able to stand. Raymond had brought 
up Pauline and the mule, and I stooped to raise 
my saddle from the ground. My strength was 
unequal to the task. "You must saddle her," 
said I to Raymond as I sat down again on a pile 
of buffalo robes. He did so, and with a painful 
effort I mounted. As we were passing over a 
great plain surrounded by long broken ridges, 
I rode slowly in advance of the Indians, with 
thoughts that wandered far from the time and 
the place. Suddenly the sky darkened, and thun- 
der began to mutter. Clouds were rising over 
the hills, as dark as the first forebodings of an 
approaching calamity ; and in a moment all 
around was wrapped in shadow. I looked be- 
hind. The Indians had stopped to prepare for 
the approaching storm, and the dense mass of 
savages stretched far to the right and left. Since 
the first attack of my disorder the effects of rain 
upon me had usually been injurious in the ex- 
treme. I had no strength to spare, having at 
that moment scarcely enough to keep my seat on 
horseback. Then, for the first time, it pressed 
upon me as a strong probability that I might 
never leave those deserts. " Well," thought I to 
myself, " the prairie makes quick and sharp 



LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 183 

work. Better to die here, in the saddle to the 
last, than to stifle in the hot air of a sick cham- 
ber ; and a thousand times better than to drag out 
life, as many have done, in the helpless inaction 
of lingering disease." So, drawing the buffalo 
robe on which I sat over my head, I waited till 
the storm should come. It broke at last with a 
sudden burst of fury, and passing away as rap- 
idly as it came, left the sky clear again. My re- 
flections served me no other purpose than to look 
back upon as a piece of curious experience ; for 
the rain did not produce the ill effects that I had 
expected. 

The Indians, being in enemy's country, were 
anxious to lose no time, and pushed on westward ; 
in a day or two their scouts reported herds of 
buffalo marching slowly over the hills in the dis- 
tance. The lodges were pitched, and things got 
ready for the hunt. Early in the morning the 
huntsmen were off. 

I had taken no food, and not being at all 
ambitious of further abstinence, I went into my 
host's lodge, which his squaws had set up with 
wonderful dispatch, and sat down in the centre, 
as a gentle hint that I was hungry. A wooden 
bowl was soon set before me, filled with the nu- 
tritious preparation of dried meat called pem- 
mican by the northern voyagers and wasna by 
the Dakota. Taking a handful to break my fast 
upon, I left the lodge just in time to see the last 
band of hunters disappear over the ridge of the 
neighboring hill. I mounted Pauline and gal- 



184 FRANCIS PARKMAN 






loped in pursuit, riding rather by the balance 
than by any muscular strength that remained to 
me. ... I left camp that morning with a philo- 
sophic resolution. Neither I nor my horse were 
at that time fit for such sport, and I had deter- 
mined to remain a quiet spectator ; but amid the 
rush of horses and buffalo, the uproar and the 
dust, I found it impossible to sit still; and as 
four or five buffalo ran past me in a line, I lashed 
Pauline in pursuit. We went plunging through 
the water and the quicksands, and clambering 
the bank, chased them through the wild sage 
bushes that covered the rising ground beyond. 
But neither her native spirit nor the blows of 
the knotted bull-hide could supply the place of 
poor Pauline's exhausted strength. We could 
not gain an inch upon the fugitives. 

After a shot, which hit but did not maim the 
cow he was chasing, Parkman turned back and 
rode slowly to camp. 

In this place they remained five days, the 
braves hunting every day and killing great num- 
bers of buffaloes. The hides were skinned, 
scraped, and rubbed, the meat was cut up and 
hung to dry in the sun. Parkman, and also 
Pauline, were too tired to take further part in 
the hunting, so he strolled over the prairie for 
an occasional shot at an antelope, and watched 
his hosts and their squaws at their various occu- 
pations. His repose at night was not all that 
weary limbs might wish. In the next lodge 



LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 185 

gambling would be going on, fast and furious ; 
ornaments, horses, garments, and weapons were 
staked upon the chances of the game to the ac- 
companiment of yells, chants, and the thumping 
of an Indian drum. In Parkman's own lodge 
Big Crow would rouse himself every night at 
twelve o'clock and sing a doleful dirge to ap- 
pease the spirits ; and the children, who were al- 
lowed to eat too much during the day and were 
petted and generally spoiled, had a habit of 
crawling about the lodge over Parkman and 
every other object, and. sometimes they cuddled 
under his blanket. He was obliged to keep a 
short stick at hand and punch their heads some 
five times during the night. 

On the twenty-fifth the camp broke up, and 
the return journey was begun. . . . The lodges 
were pitched early, and the chiefs sat in a circle 
smoking and chaffing one another. 

When the first pipe was smoked out, I rose 
and withdrew to the lodge of my host. Here I 
was stooping, in the act of taking off my powder- 
horn and bullet-pouch, when suddenly, and close 
at hand, pealing loud and shrill, and in right 
good earnest, came the terrific yell of the war- 
whoop. Kongra-Tonga's [Black Crow] squaw 
snatched up her youngest child and ran out of 
the lodge. I followed, and found the whole vil- 
lage in confusion, resounding with cries and 
yells. The circle of old men in the centre had 



186 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

vanished. The warriors, with glittering eyes, 
came darting, weapons in hand, out of the low 
openings of the lodges, and running with wild 
yells towards the farther end of the village. Ad- 
vancing a few rods in that direction, I saw a 
crowd in furious agitation. Just then I distin- 
guished the voice of Reynal [a French Canadian 
living with the Indians] shouting to me from 
a distance ; he was calling to me to come over 
and join him [on the farther side of a little 
stream]. This was clearly the wisest course, un- 
less we wished to involve ourselves in the fray ; 
so I turned to go, but just then a pair of eyes, 
gleaming like a snake's, and an aged familiar 
countenance was thrust from the opening of a 
neighboring lodge, and out bolted old Mene- 
Seela, full of fight, clutching his bow and arrows 
in one hand and his knife in the other. . . . The 
women with loud screams were hurrying with 
their children in their arms to place them out 
of danger, and I observed some hastening to 
prevent mischief by carrying away all the wea- 
pons they could lay hands on. On a rising ground 
close to the camp stood a line of old women sing- 
ing a medicine-song to allay the tumult. As I 
approached the side of the brook, I heard gun- 
shots behind me, and turning back saw the crowd 
had separated into two long lines of naked war- 
riors confronting each other at a respectful dis- 
tance, and yelling and jumping about to dodge 
the shots of their adversaries, while they dis- 
charged bullets and arrows against each other. 
At the same time certain sharp, humming sounds 
in the air over my head, like the flight of beetles 



LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 187 

on a summer evening, warned me that the danger 
was not wholly confined to the immediate scene 
of the fray. So, wading through the brook, I 
joined Keynal and Raymond, and we sat down 
on the grass, in the posture of an armed neu- 
trality, to watch the result. Happily it may be 
for ourselves, though contrary to our expectation, 
the disturbance was quelled almost as soon as it 
began. When I looked again, the combatants 
were once more mingled together in a mass. 
Though yells sounded occasionally from the 
throng, the firing had entirely ceased, and I ob- 
served five or six persons moving busily about, 
as if acting the part of peacemakers. One of 
the village heralds or criers proclaimed in a loud 
voice something which my two companions were 
too much engrossed in their own observations to 
translate for me. The crowd began to disperse, 
though many a deep-set black eye still glittered 
with an unnatural lustre, as the warriors slowly 
withdrew to their lodges. This fortunate sup- 
pression of the disturbance was owing to a few 
of the old men, less pugnacious than Mene-Seela, 
who boldly ran in between the combatants, and, 
aided by some of the " soldiers," or Indian police, 
succeeded in effecting their object. 



It was contrary to etiquette to inquire into the 
cause of the brawl, and Parkman only learned it 
some time afterwards. Mad Wolf had presented 
Tall Bear with a horse, expecting, according to 
the well-understood custom, to receive another 
gift of equal value in return. Tall Bear, how- 



188 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

ever, made no reciprocal gift, whereupon Mad 
Wolf strode up to Tall Bear's lodge, untied the 
horse he had given, and started to lead it home ; 
Tall Bear leapt from his lodge and stabbed the 
horse dead. Mad Wolf, quick as a flash, drew 
an arrow to the head against Tall Bear's breast, 
but the other stood impassive as a statue, and 
Mad Wolf lowered his bow. Partisans rallied 
to each, and the fray began, but no one was 
killed, thanks to the vigorous intervention of the 
old chiefs and of the "soldiers," a species of con- 
stabulary appointed in council and charged with 
the duty of preserving the peace. 

The next step in the Indian preparation for 
winter was to cut lodge poles. For these, which 
could only be cut from tall straight saplings, it 
was necessary to go to the Black Hills. So they 
traveled eastward for two days and arrived at 
the foot of the gloomy ridges ; here, after trav- 
ersing a long ravine between precipitous cliffs 
and masses of rock, they came upon the desired 
groves. The Indians cut their poles, while Park- 
man cultivated the friendship of Mene-Seela, 
and persuaded Black Crow, the White Eagle, 
and the Panther, his more intimate comrades, 
to spin yarns of their adventures. Most of the 
Indians Parkman did not trust, and did not like. 

They were thorough savages. Neither their 
manners nor their ideas were in the slightest 



LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 189 

degree modified by contact with civilization. 
They knew nothing of the power and real char- 
acter of the white men, and their children would 
scream in terror when they [first] saw me. Their 
religion, superstitions, and prejudices were those 
handed down to them from immemorial time. 
They fought with the weapons that their fathers 
fought with, and wore the same garments of 
skins. They were living representatives of the 
" stone age ; " for though their lances and arrows 
were tipped with iron procured from the traders, 
they still used the rude stone mallet of the prime- 
val world. . . . For the most part, a civilized 
white man can discover very few points of sym- 
pathy between his own nature and that of an 
Indian. With every disposition to do justice to 
their good qualities, he must be conscious that 
an impassable gulf lies between him and his red 
brethren. No, so alien to himself do they appear 
that, after breathing the air of the prairie for a 
few months or weeks, he begins to look upon 
them as a troublesome and dangerous species of 
wild beast. Yet, in the countenance of the Pan- 
ther (. . . who, unless his face greatly belied 
him, was free from the jealousy, suspicion, and 
malignant cunning of his people), I gladly read 
that there were at least some points of sympathy 
between him and me. 

As they approached Fort Laramie Parkman 
became eager to make haste, for August 1st, the 
day on which he had promised to meet Shaw, 
had already come ; so, when the buttes, near 
which he had encamped while waiting for the 



190 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

unpunctual Whirlwind, lifted their rough cones 
above the horizon, he rode away from his savage 
hosts in company with Raymond and one Indian 
who was bound for the fort. Several of the In- 
dians proffered him their horses as parting pre- 
sents, for the sake of receiving Pauline in return, 
but their offers were promptly declined ; Park- 
man shook hands with Reynal, but in deference 
to aboriginal custom, took no leave of the In- 
dians, and with mixed feelings of regret and 
pleasure parted with them forever. That night 
they encamped near their old site. 

" First, however, our wide-mouthed friend [the 
Indian] had taken the precaution of carefully 
examining the neighborhood. He reported that 
eight men, counting them on his fingers, had been 
encamped there not long before, — Bisonette, 
Paul Dorion, Antoine Le Rouge, Richardson, 
and four others whose names he could not tell. 
All this proved strictly correct. By what instinct 
he had arrived at such accurate conclusions, I 
am utterly at a loss to divine. 

Parkman's impatience got them up long be- 
fore sunrise, and they reached the fort well 
before noon ; there they found Shaw, Chatillon, 
and Deslauriers the muleteer, and had a banquet 
on biscuit, coffee, and salt pork, which they ate 
and drank with all the ostentation of plates, 
knives, forks, and cups, sitting on stools before 
a wooden structure politely called a table. Shaw 



LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 191 

then produced his library, — Shakespeare, Byron, 
and the Old Testament. 

I chose the worst of the three, and for the 
greater part of that day I lay on the buffalo 
robes, fairly reveling in the creations of that 
resplendent genius which has achieved no more 
signal triumph than that of half beguiling us to 
forget the unmanly character of its possessor. 

The young men bade good-by to their compan- 
ions, especially to Chatillon, with much regret, 
left the fort, and turned their faces eastward. 
They had made great friends with Chatillon, 
and thereafter friendly letters and gifts passed 
between them. Once they made the mistake 
of offering payment for rich gifts from him, 
and hurt his feelings. Chatillon prospered in a 
worldly sense, and years afterwards Parkman 
saw him at St. Louis, an owner of houses, dressed 
in the discomforts of white shirt, urban coat, 
and trousers. 

The returning journey was made without much 
ill luck. From Westport they went by boat to St. 
Louis, which they reached in the beginning of 
October, and the young men made haste to give 
their friends news of themselves. 

St. Louis, Oct. 7th, '46. 

My dear Mother, — ... Everybody here 
speaks of the intense heat of the past summer. 
We, Q. and I, may congratulate ourselves on hav- 



192 FRANCIS PARKMAN 






ing escaped it, besides gaining a great deal of 
sport, and a cartload of practical experience. I 
feel about ten years older than I did five months 
ago. To-day, for the first time, I have mounted 
the white shirt, tight dress coat, etc. . . . My 
temperament is bilious, and a meat diet, I sup- 
pose, acts unfavorably on it ; and hence the 
particularly uncomfortable state to which I was 
reduced when in the Indian country ; but in 
spite of this, they tell me here that I look better 
than when I set out for the mountains. 

... I shall go by stage, as the rivers are low, 
to Chicago, thence by railroad to Detroit, and 
thence to Buffalo. Ask Carrie to write, as I want 
very much to hear from her. You will hear from 
me often, and meanwhile believe me, dear mother, 
respectfully, your affectionate Frank. 

On his return he felt that he had qualified 
himself by practical experience to write the his- 
tory of the Indian and French wars, and grate- 
ful that so loose a rein had been given to his 
inclination, he was ready to do his duty towards 
his father and the law. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

under dr. Elliott's care 

Frank had come back with a great store of in- 
formation and experience ; he had garnered the 
grain and was ready to begin to grind. But vio- 
lent exertion, exposure, bad food, wet clothes, 
and all evil attendants of physical hardship, 
began to exact their scot, and the chief burden 
of their exaction fell on his weakest member, 
his eyes. No sooner had he got home than he 
was obliged to be off again to New York to put 
himself under the care of Dr. Elliott, a famous 
oculist, whose skill had already wrought a cure 
for his sister Caroline, who had suffered with 
her eyes. From this time his physical life as- 
sumes the grim and strained attitude of one 
long wrestle with ill health. At first there was 
hope that two months would suffice to make the 
weak eyes strong and undo the hurt that the 
Oregon journey had done ; but though his eyes 
sometimes got better and sometimes got worse, 
the two months lengthened out, and at the end 
of the second year his eyes were worse, much 



194 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

worse. In this wrestling-match with fate there 
were recesses, pauses, breathing spaces, but from 
this fatal year his body was but a ragged fort 
in which the spirit was incessantly beleaguered. 
In his brief autobiographical letters he has told 
the story in a soldier's way; it reads like the 
journal of a fighting regiment. Those pages tell 
of hardships ; these are intended to chronicle 
the happier intervals between bouts of pain, to 
record recollections and the careless gossip of 
letters which show the tender love of his family, 
the proud affection of his friends, and to relate 
the gradual progress of his work. 

CAROLINE TO FRANK. 

Boston, Dec. 17th, 1846. 
It is a great while since I have written to you, 
for I do not get time to do half what I want to. 
. . . The historical lectures take a great deal of 
time, and if I read half of the books he [the 
teacher] recommends I should be able to do no- 
thing else. They are very interesting and edify- 
ing. How glad I am that your eyes are improv- 
ing so much and what a comfort to be able to 
read so long. Don't you occasionally turn your 
thoughts homeward and remember that the two 
months are almost gone ? I fear that when they 
are gone, the Dr. will think that it would be bet- 
ter to stay a little longer. I wish you were at 
home to go with me to Aunt Shaw's party next 
Tuesday. ... I must say the party has no great 



UNDER DR. ELLIOTT'S CARE 195 

attractions for me ... if you were here I should 
like it much better. ... I hope I shall have a 
letter from you soon, but don't write unless you 
can without the least difficulty. Mother and all 
send their love. . . . Good-by, my dear brother. 

Jan. 11, 1847. 
Let me in the first place wish you a happy 
New Year, though ten days of it has gone, but 
there is enough left beside. We had a most re- 
markable day here as to weather : it was oppres- 
sively warm with winter clothes. . . . Did you 
make many calls? There were some families 
here who received their friends, but I should 
not care about its becoming a general custom ; 
there seems no satisfaction in such visits, and it 
must be a real hard day's work for gentlemen. 
. . . We heard from Aunt Mary yesterday. She 
is at Providence now, as I suppose you know, 
but is not much better than she has been since 
the summer. . . . She writes in pretty good 
spirits though, and wants to know particularly 
about you, and sends her love. We are going 
this evening to see the " Viennoises Danseuses " 
(I am quite willing to write it, but would n't 
think of pronouncing it). Father saw them in 
Dublin, and was so delighted with them that he 
is willing to be seen at the theatre in such a 
cause, custom notwithstanding. I think it will 
be quite an inducement in itself to go, just for 
the sake of seeing him sitting in one of the 
boxes ! 



196 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Tuesday, Feb. 23d, 1847. 

... I believe that father told you in his last 
letter that Dr. Elliott gave "encouraging ac- 
counts " of you when he was here ; but he mis- 
understood me, for I was the only one of the 
family that the Dr. saw, and all that he said 
was that yours was a difficult case, that he had 
no doubt of his curing you finally, but that after 
you had been with him a few weeks he found there 
were peculiarities of the system that at first he 
could not discover. He said that your nervous 
system was a good deal deranged, which made it 
difficult to affect you by medicine, or something 
to that purpose ; if I have not represented it as 
it was told, do not think he made out a better 
statement just to please us, for all he said to 
encourage was that it was a curable case, and 
that he should do all he could to enable you to 
come home as soon as possible, as father de- 
sired. . . . Last week I had a miniature party, 
and wish you had been here, for it was very 
pleasant. . . . They came to tea, and it was a 
very sociable little soiree. We had music of the 
first order, for they are a very musical set, and 
Matilda Abbot sings remarkably well. . . . 

Now Frank, my dear, I have heard that you 
have written some account of your journey in the 
" Knickerbocker,'' and how brotherly it would 
be if you would send us the number which con- 
tains it, for I suppose you have it, or at least 
you might have told us that it was to be seen 
there, for you know how much interested I 
should be in everything you write, and all that 
you do. Only think how long it is since you 



UNDER DR. ELLIOTT'S CARE 197 

have lived at home, almost a year. Sometimes 
I feel that you know so much more, and that we 
are so different in mind and in our feelings about 
some things that we might not be so near to 
each other as is my sincerest wish ; but this feel- 
ing, perhaps, is quite unnecessary, and I hope 
that our love will be just as strong as if I 
did not feel there was any difference. I never 
could have told you this, it is so much easier to 
write one's secret feelings than to speak them, 
but I am glad to let you know them. . . . Write 
to us soon, and I hope you will have better ac- 
counts to give. Mother sends her love, and with 
much love from your sister Carrie. 

Tuesday, March 2d, 1847. 

Your letter reached us yesterday, and I can- 
not tell you how badly we feel on account of 
your health. It is a hard trial, I am sure, not to 
be able at least to use your mind while you are 
shut out from reading. I do hope that this state 
will not continue long. ... I hope that next 
summer you will feel inclined to loafe round at 
Phillips beach with us. For we have the pros- 
pect of the same pleasant family that we had 
last year, and you would be able to have quite a 
variety in your occupations too, . . . and there 
are beautiful rides and walks all around there, 
and perhaps we might renew our horseback ex- 
peditions, which are very popular there, espe- 
cially the ride to Nahant over the beach, and 
when you get there you would find many of 
your friends, Mary Eliot among others. Is n't 
that a pleasant prospect ? It would be so plea- 



198 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

sant to have you there with us, you don't know 
how we used to long for you last summer. . . . 
I go to history in a few minutes, so I am in a 
hurry. . . . Mother and all the rest send their 
love and wish you were with us that we might 
do something for you. I hope it will not be long 
before we can see you. Maria Eldredge is going 
to N. Y. in a few weeks to stay. I should like to 
go with her to stay with you. Suppose I should 
not be admitted to Delmonico's, though. . . . 

Friday, March 19th, 1847. 
We were very glad to hear from you yester- 
day, and I hope you will feel the good effects of 
the new system, but if it is much more severe 
than that which the Dr. generally uses, I should 
think you would be in torture. ... 1 cannot 
tell you how delighted Elly [his brother John 
Eliot] was with the book you sent him, and you 
could not have chosen a better time to send it. 
. . . He is quite overcome by your thinking of 
him and is going to write you a letter next week. 
Father sends his love. Mother and the girls send 
love also. . . . 

Boston, May 14th, [1847]. 
. . . We were very glad to receive a letter 
from you this morning, and hope you will feel 
that your eyes are continuing to improve with- 
out any more drawbacks. . . . Mary gets on 
very well with the copying; it is about finished 
now. ... I hope you will be able to read this 
yourself, and out of compassion for your eyes I 
will not inflict more, but believe me, dear Frank, 
that nothing would make me happier than to 



UNDER DR. ELLIOTT'S CARE 199 

feel that I could do something to make your un- 
occupied time pass pleasantly. ... I hope we 
shall hear very soon. With much love, 

Carrie. 

In the course of nature a father, as the purse- 
holder, has relations and correspondence with a 
son which differ a little in tenor from those 
which mother and sister have, and as the Park- 
man family did not differ in any marked partic- 
ular from other families, we find traces of that 
eternal dialogue between the purse-holder and 
the purse-emptier, which commonly fills so much 
larger a part in the correspondence between 
father and son. 

Boston, March 2, [1847]. 

My dear Son, — We have read your letter 
to Carrie with no little regret and disappoint- 
ment. I am pained by what you write of your 
general state of health as well as of your eyes. 
And I hardly know what course it will be best 
for you to pursue. . . . 

You write in a short postscript that you are 
in want of money. I am most happy, as you 
well know, to supply it. But I confess, my dear 
son, that I am somewhat surprised by the fre- 
quency of your calls. Since I was in New York, 
when I gave you fifty dollars in addition to 
twenty or thirty you then had, I sent you sev- 
enty dollars, in anticipation, as I thought, of 
your needs for the present. I take it for granted 
that it was ample for the bills at Delmonico's, 



200 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 



etc., for the month just ended, and that those bills 
are paid. I request that instead of a short post- 
script thro' Caroline [mark the full complement 
of syllables] you would let me know more par- 
ticularly of the amount of your expenses, and 
what is necessary for a month. All that is 
proper for your comfort and gratification shall 
always and most readily be supplied. But for the 
four months you have been in New York you 
have received $400, or at the rate of 11200 a 
year. ... I wish you would write to me partic- 
ularly if your eyes permit. Your mother sends 
her love, and we earnestly hope, my dear son, 
that you will find yourself better soon. 
I am your affectionate father, 

Francis Parkman. 

Then those honest friends, — great peace- 
makers, that knit up the raveled sleave of a 
father's care, — exact accounts, served their good 
offices. 



Item 



Bootblack 
Ale . 
Breakfast 
Umbrella 
Chocolate, etc. 
Ale . 
Breakfast 
Dinner 
Tea . 
Waiter 
Carriage 
Books 



In the next letter their service is recognized 



.10 
.12 
.37 
.75 
.18 
.12 
.25 
.75 
.25 
.25 
.50 
1.50, etc. 



UNDER DR. ELLIOTT'S CARE 201 

Monday, March 8, 1847. 

My dear Son, — Your statement of your 
expenses at Delmonico's is altogether satisfac- 
tory. ... 

I am at present at a loss what to advise as to 
your remaining from home. It seems to me very 
desirable that you should have more of domestic 
comfort than you can possibly have as you are. 
. . . Think over the matter in your own mind, 
and at your leisure give me your ideas. We are 
all well. Your affectionate father, 

F. Parkman. 

Frank, however, was obliged to stay away all 
the spring and all the summer too. 

In the mean time "The Oregon Trail" had 
begun its slow publication in the "Knicker- 
bocker Magazine." Frank had kept a full note- 
book of his expedition and adventures, and soon 
after his return, from these notes and from his 
admirable memory, had dictated the book to 
his friend and comrade, Shaw. The first chap- 
ters appeared in February. Frank, in his mod- 
est, reserved, self-sufficient way, deigned to tell 
neither his family nor his friends. His sister 
found it out by chance, so did his friends. It was 
put out into the world to stand on its own feet, 
and like a waif win what success it might in the 
estimation of the impartial, cold-hearted sub- 
scribers to the " Knickerbocker." If it deserved 
success, Frank wished it to succeed ; if not, why 



202 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

let it go and keep company with mediocrity and 
failure, as it deserved. 

The book was not as successful, not as pop- 
ular with the public, as might well have been 
expected even by a young man much less cool 
and self-contained than Frank. It was more than 
twenty years since the " Last of the Mohicans " 
had been published, and it was reasonable to 
anticipate an eager reception for a fresh tale 
of the wild life of the West. The editor of the 
" Knickerbocker," however, justly appreciated 
its worth ; so did others. 

Dobb, his Crossing, 
Woden, his day, Aug. 30, ['47]. 

My dear Parkman, — Your next " Trail " 
has the place of honor in the " Knickerbocker," — 
that is, the one for October. They are excellent 
papers. Washington Irving told me to-day that 
he read them with great pleasure — as I always 
do. I hope you find them as correctly printed 
as you could expect, under the circumstances. I 
read them carefully ; but the manuscript is some- 
times very obscured. How are your eyes? I long 
much to hear that they are getting well. . . . 

Will you let me say how much I am, and truly, 
yours, L. Gaylord Clark. 

REV. F. PARKMAN TO SAME. 

Monday Morning, Aug. 7th, ['47]. 

My dear Son, — ... Though 1 wrote to you 
something of a long letter on Friday, yet I can- 
not help " taking pen in hand," just to tell you 



UNDER DR. ELLIOTT'S CARE 203 

of a little incident which, as it gave pleasure to 
your mother and me, will not, I think, be other- 
wise than agreeable to you. 

Last week Elly came into town, and having 
a half day's leisure, strolled over to the Navy 
Yard at Charlestown. As he was looking round, 
as boys love to look, an officer met him and 
asked him his name ; and finding it Parkman, 
he asked him, further, if he was any relation to 
the gentleman who wrote articles in the " Knick- 
erbocker." Elly told him that he was his brother, 
which, as you know, was no more than true. 
The officer then said, " Come with me, and I 
will show you all there is to see ; for I am glad 
to know a brother of the writer of those pieces. 
He writes well, and I read ' The Oregon Trail ' 
with great pleasure." He then took Elly all over 
the yard, and when he had shown him fully all 
there was to be seen he invited him into his own 
room, and among many other things showed him 
the numbers of the " Knickerbocker " which he 
said had given him so much pleasure. 

I confess, my dear Frank, I was much grati- 
fied by this ; but I should not be studious to 
write it out at length, did I not feel that under 
your trials and inability to do as much as you 
desire, you are entitled to know that what you 
have done, and still can do, is fully appreciated. 
It is a consolation, when some of our plans are 
interrupted, to know that others have so well 
succeeded. And I congratulate you on having 
accomplished so much and so successfully amidst 
great discouragements. . . . Mother sends her 
love ; and I am your affectionate father, 

F. Pakkman. 



204 FRANCIS PARKMAN 



SAME TO SAME. 



Boston, Friday, Sept. 3, [1847]. 

My dear Son, — ... I have received for 
you a diploma as Honorary Member of the New 
York Historical Society. I hear frequently of 
your " Oregon Trail," and of the success of your 
lucubrations. . . . 

With sincere affection, I am yours, 

F. Parkman. 

By this time, finding that his eyes had not 
improved, Frank had gone to Brattleboro, Ver- 
mont, to try the water-cure, somewhat fash- 
ionable in those days. But the success of this 
experiment, though he repeated it several times, 
was slight, and he went back again to Dr. El- 
liott's care. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 

Befoee the " Oregon Trail " had run its slow 
course in the " Knickerbocker Magazine," Park- 
man had been busying himself in putting into 
narrative the varied mass of information which 
he had been gathering during the previous six 
or seven years. It was not easy to make one 
straight-away story of it, there was such lack of 
unity in the subject. Pontiac was but the most 
conspicuous chief in a long line of border war that 
encircled the English settlements from Maine to 
Carolina. There was need of art, of grouping 
and arrangement, of dragging certain events and 
actors into the foreground, of pushing others 
back, of exalting here and abasing there ; in 
short, of the infinite pains that only can over- 
come an unwieldly narrative. Parkman himself 
says in the preface that lack of eyesight, which 
forced him to long periods of darkness and medi- 
tation, during which he thought out the sequence 
of his story, was really of service to him. It is a 
generous instance of giving the devil his due. I 



206 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

quote his autobiography l for an account of this 
period of composition. 

In the spring of 1848, the condition indicated 
being then at its worst, the writer resolved to 
attempt the composition of the history of the 
conspiracy of Pontiac, of which the material had 
been for some time collected and the ground pre- 
pared. The difficulty was so near to the impossi- 
ble that the line of distinction often disappeared, 
while medical prescience condemned the plan as 
a short road to dire calamities. His motive, how- 
ever, was in part a sanitary one, growing out of 
a conviction that nothing could be more deadly 
to his bodily and mental health than the entire 
absence of a purpose and an object. The diffi- 
culties were threefold : an extreme weakness of 
sight, disabling him even from writing his name, 
except with eyes closed ; a condition of the brain 
prohibiting fixed attention, except at occasional 
brief intervals ; and an exhaustion and total de- 
rangement of the nervous system, producing of 
necessity a mood of mind most unfavorable to 
effort. To be made with impunity, the attempt 
must be made with the most watchful caution. 

He caused a wooden frame to be constructed 
of the size and shape of a sheet of letter paper. 
Stout wires were fixed horizontally across it, half 
an inch apart, and a movable back of thick paste- 
board fitted behind them. The paper for writing 
was placed between the pasteboard and the wires, 
guided by which, and using a black lead crayon, 
he could write not illegibly with closed eyes. He 

1 Life o/Parkman, pp. 325-327. 



ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 207 

was at the time absent from home, on Staten 
Island, where, and in the neighboring city of 
New York, he had friends who willingly offered 
their aid. It is needless to say to which half of 
humanity nearly all these kind assistants be- 
longed. He chose for a beginning that part of 
the work which offered fewest difficulties, and 
with the subject of which he was most familiar, 
namely, the Siege of Detroit. The books and 
documents, already partially arranged, were pro- 
cured from Boston, and read to him at such times 
as he could listen to them ; the length of each 
reading never, without injury, much exceeding 
half an hour, and periods of several days fre- 
quently occurring during which he could not lis- 
ten at all. Notes were made by him with closed 
eyes, and. afterwards deciphered and read to him 
till he had mastered them. For the first half 
year the rate of composition averaged about six 
lines a day. The portion of the book thus com- 
posed was afterwards partially rewritten. His 
health improved under the process, and the re- 
mainder of the volume — in other words, nearly 
the whole of it — was composed in Boston, while 
pacing in the twilight of a large garret [5 Bow- 
doin Square], the only exercise which the sen- 
sitive condition of his sight permitted him in 
an unclouded day while the sun was above the 
horizon. It was afterwards written down from 
dictation by relatives under the same roof, to 
whom he was also indebted for the preparatory 
readings. His progress was much less tedious 
than at the outset, and the history was complete 
in about two years and a half. 



208 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

This story was given to the world after his 
death ; in life Parkman concealed his disabilities 
from his acquaintances under a cool reserve. 
Once a friend, coming from a distance, entered 
the room where Parkman sat in the dark with 
curtains drawn and eyes bandaged ; surprised by 
sympathy, he betrayed his pity. The tone of 
Parkman's voice made him think for an instant 
that his own eyes had deceived him, and that he 
was in the presence of a perfectly well, untroubled 
man. Nevertheless, Parkman's intimates knew 
what odds he struggled with, and having in their 
minds the young man who had spent his time 
crying " words of manage to his bounding steed," 
leaping on and off while at full gallop, — one of 
them has said that on horseback, with his face 
grim and resolute, he looked like Colleoni, — 
they could not wholly forbear to express their 
sympathy. 

Mr. Edmund D wight was a classmate and 
dear friend. 

EDMUND DWIGHT TO PARKMAN. 

Boston, April 23d, '48. 
My dear Frank, — I received your most wel- 
come note three days ago. Thank you for it. 
. . . Your account of yourself is perhaps as 
good as could have been expected. I wish that 
it had been a great deal better, but still it is 
enough for us to build our hopes upon that all 



ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 209 

will yet be well. I believe I have told you how 
certain I consider your final success to be if your 
health is spared. So keep up your spirits, dear 
Frank. No one ever did so more thoroughly and 
bravely than you have done. Your reward is as 
certain as any future event can be. . . . 

Pray let me hear from you soon, and believe 
me, dear Frank, faithfully and warmly, your 
friend. 

Boston, April 30th, 1848. 

I saw Quincy Shaw last night, who told me he 
heard indirectly that you were getting on pretty 
well, which is very good news so far as it goes. 
Charlie Norton will bring more minute intelli- 
gence, and I hope soon to get a word having 
your own authority for it. . . . 

I have read " The Oregon Trail " for April and 
admire it exceedingly, though I think they would 
be still more interesting if read without a month's 
intermission between the chapters. ... If you 
have not already made up your mind to collect 
and publish what has been portioned out to us, 
I hope you will for your friends' sake as well as 
your own. I will not give you the opinions which 
I hear expressed unless you prove intractable ; 
if you do I have that which will bring you 
round. . . . 

Boston, May 18, 1848. 

I was heartily glad to receive a line from you 
on Sunday, giving so encouraging account of 
your condition and prospects. You know that if 
my good wishes could do you any good, you 
would have had the full benefit of them long 
ago. . . . 



210 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Boston, June 10, 1848. 

I received your letter of the 9th upon my re- 
turn from Springfield to-day. No words can tell 
you, dear Frank, how deep my sympathy is for 
you in all your terrible sufferings, nor how ar- 
dent my admiration for the noble fortitude with 
which you bear them. Nor is my faith that in 
this world you will find at last that happiness 
which you are so faithfully earning less deep 
than my sympathy and sorrow for your misfor- 
tunes. The postscript of your letter adds a 
ground of belief and opens a prospect of success. 
It cannot, it will not be that you shall be disap- 
pointed and foiled at last. No, dear Frank, it 
will all be well with you before long, and your 
reward will be as great as the difficulties you 
have overcome. The darkest cloud has a silver 
lining, and that will soon be turned toward you, 
and all these storm clouds pass away. I know 
how truly religious you are amidst all this dread- 
ful trial. Only recollect that " hope " is ranked 
next to " faith " among the Christian virtues. 
Heaven bless the Doctor who gives you such 
good grounds for belief in the place of hope, and 
with one skillful Dr. for your eyes and another 
for your nerves all will be well before long. . . . 
Farewell, my dear friend. Heaven be with you 
and send you bright days quickly. 

July 19, 1848. 

I was very glad indeed to receive your let- 
ter two days ago confirming the impression I 
had received when with you that you were grow- 
ing better. The progress may be, or rather, I 
suppose, must be, slow, and changes for the 



ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 211 

worse will occur ; still, so long as the direction is 
the right one, there is a certainty of coming out 
right at last. . . . 

July 22d. 
The returned volunteers parade the streets to- 
day, and the city is full of gaping countrymen 
to see the warriors. Do you still hold to your 
old notions about the glory of a soldier and the 
high qualities that are required to make a man 
fight well? Because if you do I should like to 
argue the point with you. A good officer is a 
noble fellow, and so is any other good man in 
active business. I 'm getting a contempt for 
men who only preach and theorize. If a man 
does keep straight through the bad influences of 
such a life it says a vast deal for him. Good-by. 
Keep up your spirits, and believe me, dear Frank, 
yours sincerely, 

Edmund Dwight, Jr. 

In some of the letters there are references to 
politics which seem to imply that Dwight and 
Parkman shared the views prevailing in well-to- 
do Boston, — dislike of the ad valorem clauses 
in the tariff", indignation with the South, disap- 
proval of the Mexican war. But Parkman's 
world had shrunk to the four walls of a dark- 
ened room, and his thoughts were too closely 
concentred on his work to wander far afield. 

He valued his friends, and always kept the 
letters that bore witness to the affection they 
felt for him. 



212 FRANCIS PARKMAN 



C. E. NORTON TO PARKMAN. 

Sunday, June 18, 1848. 

My dear Frank, — I have long meant to 
write to you, and should have done so before 
now had I supposed my letter would have given 
you pleasure. But as Ned Dwight told me last 
week that you spoke in your last letter to him 
of not being so well, except as regards your 
eyes, I determined to write to you, if for no 
other reason than to assure you of my continued 
and sincere sympathy with you. You have, my 
dear friend, one great source of support and 
comfort in your sufferings, the consciousness 
that they have not been sent to you as the retri- 
bution for your past life, but that they have 
come in accordance with the inscrutable design 
of God, and will finally work out their own re- 
sult by bringing you nearer to him. Let me 
quote from Miss Barrett two or three lines : — 

" With earnest prayers 
Fasten your soul so high that constantly 
The smile of your heroic cheer may float 
Above all floods of earthly agonies." 

All this is, I know, very familiar to you, and for 
the last year or two you have given proof to 
every one who has known you that you carry 
your principles, which so few of us do, into daily 
action ; and in the midst of suffering you may 
have the encouragement of knowing that your 
example is one which we shall always cherish as 
inciting us to manliness and patience and faith. 
. . . Good-by. Write to me if you can. With 
kindest remembrances from the whole family. 



213 

Boston, Sept. 4th, 1848. 

I have just got and looked over the worthless 
number of the " Knickerbocker " for this month. 
Where is the " Oregon Trail " ? Have you quar- 
reled with the editor, or he with you ? Or was 
the manuscript lost ? Or is Clark, knowing that 
there are but three numbers more, keeping it 
back that he may have a number or two for his 
new volume, so as to retain his subscribers who 
subscribe for the sake of that alone? It is not 
good policy in an editor of a magazine to have 
one contributor who so far excels the rest. Pray 
write to me to tell me about the missing chapter 
and about yourself. I hope you still keep to your 
intention of publishing the " Trail " in a volume 
this autumn. The time is drawing near when it 
should be out. Do begin to print, and either 
make arrangements with some New York pub- 
lisher, or let me make them with some publisher 
here. At any rate, let me do as much for you in 
looking over the proofs, or in any other way, as I 
can. ... 

New Yoke:, Febr'y 25th, 1849. 

It seemed almost as if I were going to meet 
you, when yesterday morning I went down to 
Putnam's to see him about your book. ... I 
found Putnam, and learned from him that the 
"Oregon and California Trail" would be out in 
about ten days — some time in next week. He 
said that so far as he knew there had not been 
the least difficulty in making out the corrections 
in the copy you had sent him, that he had re- 
ceived the last proof that morning, that the en- 
gravings were so nearly finished that he thought 



214 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

he could give me copies of them to send on to 
you to-morrow, and that he could have six copies 
bound and sent to you early. I selected a neat 
and handsome style in which to have them bound, 
and told Putnam's clerk to be careful to have 
the matter attended to. . . . 

Milan, April 18th, 1850. 

I have owed you a letter for a long time. It 
has not been from any want of frequent remem- 
brance that I have not written — if I did not 
know that you would believe in that, I should 
certainly have written before. Your last letter 
came to me at Alexandria. I was very glad to 
receive it, as it contained good accounts of your- 
self. I hope that you could have written in the 
same way all the winter. . . . During this last 
January I was traveling from Agra to Bombay, 
and during the journey, which was a solitary one, 
I often thought over and with constant pleasure 
the mornings of the January of the year before 
spent with you. I trust you will have a very long 
manuscript for me to read a year hence, when I 
am once more at home. . . . 

Ever your very faithful friend, 

Charles Eliot Norton. 

E. George Squier, another friend, was an anti- 
quarian interested in Central America, a man of 
scholarly tastes and archaeological learning, full 
of energy and exuberant vigor. 



ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 215 

parkman to squier [dictated]. 

Boston, Oct. 15th, 1849. 

My dear Squier, — ... As for me I am 
rather inclined to envy you less for your success 
and your prospects, enviable as they are, than for 
your power of activity. From a complete and 
ample experience of both, I can bear witness that 
no amount of physical pain is so intolerable as 
the position of being stranded and doomed to lie 
rotting for year after year. However, I have not 
yet abandoned any plan which I have ever formed, 
and I have no intention of abandoning any until 
I am made cold meat of. At present I am much 
better in health than when you last saw me, and 
do not suffer from that constant sense of oppres- 
sion on the brain which then at times annoyed 
me almost beyond endurance. I find myself able 
to work a little, although my eyes are in a to- 
tally useless state and excessively sensitive. The 
eyes are nothing to the other infernal thing, 
which now seems inclined to let me alone, good 
riddance to it ; so I continue to dig slowly along 
by the aid of other people's eyes, doing the work 
more thoroughly, no doubt, and digesting my ma- 
terials better than if I used my own. I have just 
obtained the papers that were wanting to com- 
plete my collection for the illustrative work on 
the Indians which I told you about. The manu- 
scripts amount to several thousand pages. I am 
inclined to think that the labor of collecting them 
might have been better bestowed, but I was a 
boy when I began it, and at all events the job 
will be done thoroughly. ... If I can serve you 



216 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

in the way of writing or otherwise, I wish you 
would let me know, and I shall be very glad to 
do anything in my power. By some practice I 
have caught the knack of dictating and find it as 
easy as lying. 

Believe me, with much regard, very truly 
yours, 

[F. Parkman.] 

In May, 1850, he married Miss Catherine 
Scollay Bigelow, a daughter of Dr. Jacob Bige- 
low, at that time a distinguished physician in 
Boston. 



CHAPTER XX 

LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 

Parkman's married life was very happy, espe- 
cially in these first years before the devil of 
lameness clutched him. He and his wife were 
rarely suited to each other ; she was a spiritu- 
ally-minded and an intellectual woman, religious, 
fond of poetry, dearly loved by those who knew 
her best. She was endowed by nature with a 
sweet, joyful disposition, with humor and flashes 
of wit, and with the high courage requisite to 
tend unfalteringly the pain and suffering of the 
man she loved. She, too, was calm outwardly 
and ardent underneath, and in self-abnegation 
and devotion bore her great sorrows. She put 
aside everything to minister to him, became his 
eyesight and his health, and lived his life in 
all ways possible. The death of her little son, 
Francis, broke her heart, and it never healed ; 
after that she went about like one who belonged 
in another world. In the last year of her life 
she was called upon to bear her husband's worst 
illness ; but the first years of married life were 



218 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

gay and happy. They were poor, with not much 
more than six hundred dollars a year to begin 
housekeeping : — 

Sie hatten nichts und doch genug — 

In the winter they lived part of the time at his 
father's house, and part at Dr. Bigelow's ; one 
summer they spent at Milton, the next at Brook- 
line. Some letters to Mr. Norton, who was at 
that time in Europe, written soon after their 
marriage, reveal their interests and their happi- 
ness. 

PAEKMAN TO NORTON [dictated]. 

Milton, June 15, [1850]. 

My dear Charley, — ... I have a place 
near Milton Hill, small, snug, and comfortable, 
where I can offer entertainment for man and 
beast, of which I hope you and your steed will 
one day avail yourselves. We have woods about 
us dark enough for an owl to hide in, very fair 
society, not too near to bore us, and, what is 
quite as much to the purpose, a railroad to place 
us within arm's reach of town. This kind of life 
has one or two drawbacks, such as the necessity 
of paying bills, and the manifold responsibilities 
of a householder, an impending visit from the 
tax-gatherer, and petitions for the furtherance of 
charitable enterprises which, as I am informed, 
the son of my father will not fail to promote. . . . 

I have a reader for an hour or two, and when 
it is not too bright play the amateur farmer, to 
the great benefit of my corporeal man. Kate 






LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 219 

[Mrs. Parkman] is generally rny amanuensis, 
as perhaps you may see by this handwriting. 
Pontiac is about three quarters through, and I 
hope will see the light within a year. I cal- 
culated at starting it would take four years to 
finish it, which, at the pace I was then writing, 
was about a straight calculation, for I was then 
handsomely used up, soul and body on the rack, 
and with no external means or appliances to 
help me on. You may judge whether my present 
condition is a more favorable one. I detest be- 
ing spooney or an approximation to it, so I say 
nothing, but if you want to understand the thing, 
take a jump out of hell-fire to the opposite ex- 
treme, such a one, in short, as Satan made when 
he broke bounds and paid his visit to our first 
parents. . . . 

With the greatest regard, very truly yours, 

F. Parkman, Jr. 

same to same [dictated]. 

Milton, Sept. 22d, 1850. 

My dear Charley, — It is a fortnight since 
your letter came to hand, and I have been too 
busy to answer it; rather a new condition of 
things for me, but the fact is all the time which 
I could prudently give to work has been taken up 
in carrying forward my book so as to be ready 
for publication next spring. I see that you are 
a true-hearted American, and have too much 
sense to be bitten by the John Bull mania, which 
is the prevailing disease of Boston in high places 
and in low. A disgusting malady it is, and I 
pray Heaven to deliver us from its influence. 



220 FRANCIS PARKMAN 






We can afford to stand on our own feet and 
travel our own course without aid or guidance ; 
and ray maxim is, that it is about as well to go 
wrong on one's own hook as to go right by slav- 
ishly tagging at the heels of another. But in the 
present case the thing is reversed. It is we that 
are going right, and John Bull may go to the 
devil. Fine Yankee brag, — is n't it ? In spite 
of Taylor's [President Taylor] death we have 
come out right at last. There is no danger, thank 
God, of the Union breaking up at present, in 
spite of all the efforts of Garrison and his coad- 
jutors. 

I wish with all my heart that you could be 
here, as you kindly wish, at the forthcoming of 
my book ; but a copy shall be put by for you. 
I find it seriously no easy job to accomplish all 
the details of dates, citations, notes, etc., with- 
out the use of eyes. .Prescott could see a little 
— confound him, he could even look over his 
proofs, but I am no better off than an owl in 
the sunlight. The ugliest job of the whole is 
getting up a map. I have a draught made in 
the first place on a very large scale. Then I 
direct how to fill it in with the names of forts, 
Indian villages, etc., all of which I have pretty 
clearly in my memory from the reading of count- 
less journals, letters, etc., and former travels 
over the whole ground. Then I examine the 
map inch by inch, taking about half a minute 
for each examination, and also have it com- 
pared by competent eyes with ancient maps and 
draughts ; then I have the big map reduced to a 
proper size. I have got to the end of the book 



LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 221 

and killed off Pontiac. The opening chapters, 
however, are not yet complete. I have just 
finished an introductory chapter on the Indian 
tribes, which my wife pronounces uncommonly 
stupid. Never mind, nobody need read it who 
don't want to, ... I shall stereotype it myself 
and take the risk. . . . 

I remain, my dear Charley, ever faithfully 
yours, 

F. Parkman, Jr. 

Another extract from this correspondence 
shall be the last. 

same to same [dictated]. 

Nov. 10th, 1850. 
. . . Just now we are on the eve of an elec- 
tion — - a great row about the Fugitive Slave 
Law, and an infinity of nonsense talked and 
acted upon the subject. A great union party is 
forming in opposition to the abolitionists and 
the Southern fanatics. For my part, I would see 
every slave knocked on the head before I would 
see the Union go to pieces, and would include 
in the sacrifice as many abolitionists as could be 
conveniently brought together. . . . 

All his life Parkman liked common sense. 
He was irritated by sentimentality, by fanati- 
cism, by transcendentalism, by eccentricity of 
thought ; and he was wont to relieve his mind 
-by a little emphatic language, which he was 
pleased to enhance with a certain extravagance, 
half in jest, half in relief of his humors. 



222 FRANCIS PARKMAN 






The " Conspiracy of Pontiac," was published 
in 1851, but it had been ready for more than a 
twelve-month. Mr. Jared Sparks read a portion 
of the manuscript in March, 1850. " It affords," 
he says, " a striking picture of the influence of 
war and religious bigotry upon savage and semi- 
barbarous minds." But the old pedagogical his- 
torian of the earlier American generation, miss- 
ing in the young historian of a new school a 
proper predilection for moral lessons, so ready 
to hand, could not find it in his heart to stop 
there. Referring to the massacre by the Paxton 
Boys, 1 he writes : " The provocation and sur- 
rounding circumstances afford no ground of miti- 
gation of so inhuman a crime. It is one of the 
great lessons of history, showing what passion 
is capable of doing when it defies reason and 
tramples on the sensibilities of nature, to say 
nothing of the high injunctions of Christianity. 
Although you relate events in the true spirit 
of calmness and justice, yet I am not sure but 
a word or two of indignation now and then, at 
such unnatural and inhuman developments of 
the inner man, would be expected of a historian, 
who enters deeply into the merits of his sub- 
jects." But Parkman preferred to state facts as 
he believed them to be, and to let his readers 
make their own philosophical deductions and 

1 Conspiracy of Pontiac, chap. xxiv. 



LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 223 

ejaculate their own exclamations of indignation 
or content. 

Negotiations for publication began in the sum- 
mer, when the manuscript was submitted to 
Messrs. Harper & Brother by a friend. Park- 
man would have preferred to have the book pub- 
lished in two volumes, in appearance similar to 
Prescott's " Conquest of Mexico," but the pre- 
cise form was indifferent to him " provided the 
book appear in a decent and scholar-like dress." 
The title caused him some perplexity. He sug- 
gested the following name, " which, however, I 
don't greatly admire," — it certainly is open to 
criticism from a bookbinder who should wish to 
stamp the name on the back, — "A History of 
the War with Pontiac and the Indian Tribes of 
North America in their combined attack upon 
the British Colonies after the Conquest of Can- 
ada," or " A History of the Conspiracy of Pon- 
tiac and the Struggle of the North American 
Indians against the British Colonies after the 
Conquest of Canada;" and again, " The War 
with Pontiac (or Pontiac's War), a History of 
the Outbreak of the Indian Tribes of America 
against the British Colonies after the Conquest 
of Canada." The difficulty for the outside of the 
book was the same as for the inside ; the far- 
spread border war resisted the attempt to crib 
and confine it within the circle of unity. 



224 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

The prudent Harpers, scared perhaps by 
these titles, submitted the MS. to their reader, 
and wrote back : — 

" Our Reader [the capital R served both to show 
how Rhadam an thine that gentleman was, and to 
soften the Rejection] has just returned to us 
Mr. Parkman's MS. His opinion, as regards 
the literary execution of the work, etc., is very 
favorable, — but he is apprehensive that the 
work, highly respectable as it is, will not meet 
with a very rapid or extensive sale," etc., etc. 

" Our Reader" had said : — 

The subject is handled with very considerable 
ability — in a manner highly creditable to the 
industry, intelligence, and literary skill of the 
author. The narrative is lively and often grace- 
ful, the rules of historical perspective are well 
observed, and the whole effect of the picture is 
pleasing and impressive. It will worthily fill a 
notch among the standard works of American 
history. At the same time, I do not anticipate 
for it a remarkably brilliant reception. This is 
forbidden both by the subject and the style. . . . 
It will require a good deal of effort to push it 
into general circulation among the people. 

Therefore the Harpers, in the self-respecting 
phraseology of the old-fashioned counting-room, 
advised that Parkman should stereotype the work 
at his own cost, and then submit the plate proofs 
to various publishers, and find where he could 
get the best terms. 



225 

Parkman followed this advice and had the 
book stereotyped, having learned what terms to 
make by borrowing from the " confounded " 
Prescott the latter's contract with a printer for 
stereotyping the " Conquest of Mexico. 1 ' The 
book was published by Messrs. Little & Brown. 

" Our Reader " was sagacious ; the book was 
not a popular success. But those who read it 
admired and enjoyed it. Mr. Jared Sparks may 
speak for the students of American history : — 

Cambridge, June 4, 1850. 
I have been intimately acquainted with ye 
progress of Mr. Parkman's historical studies 
several years. On ye subject of our Indian His- 
tory, subsequent to ye French War, he has taken 
unwearied pains to collect materials, and has 
procured copies of many original manuscripts 
and papers both in this country and from ye 
public offices in London. I doubt if any writer 
has bestowed more thorough research, or has 
more completely investigated his subject. I have 
read one chapter of his work, wh. appeared to 
me to be written in a spirited style, and with 
good judgment and discrimination in ye selec- 
tion of facts. 

Other readers wrote their feelings, — perhaps 
none of them are entitled to speak for anybody 
but themselves. Mr. G. R. Russell, however, a 
relation, expressed a common opinion in a letter 
to Parkman : — 



226 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

I have just finished reading your " History of 
the Conspiracy of Pontiac." I have read the work 
with great care, going over parts of it twice, not 
for purposes of criticism, but to enjoy the really 
beautiful descriptions, which place scenes before 
the reader as distinctly conspicuous as though he 
gazed at them wrought out on canvas by the hand 
of a master. 

Particular reasons for enjoyment are unimpor- 
tant matters of personal taste which the reader 
must determine for himself ; but the young man, 
the middle-aged man, or the graybeard, is not to 
be envied who, even now, fifty years after its 
publication, cannot sit up half the night over the 
pages of " Pontiac " and read about the bloody 
scalpings, skirmishes, forays, and battles which 
arouse that central government of our being, the 
aboriginal savage in us. John Fiske says that 
the secret of Parkman's power is that his Indians 
are true to the life, — that Pontiac is a man of 
warm flesh and blood. 

The book was also published in London by 
Richard Bentley at the time of the publication of 
the American edition. Mr. Bentley took a more 
hopeful view than the Reader for the Harpers, 
but that keen-scented gentleman, with his daintier 
sense of the reading public's appetites, was the 
more accurate. At the end of a year the English 
publisher's account carried a deficit of £53 2, 
and his ledger showed that of the five hundred 



LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 227 

copies printed, but one hundred and fifty-three 
had been sold. 

Parkman, however, never fell before the tempta- 
tion to dally over that which had been done, — 
stopping neither to regret this nor to wish that 
changed ; he ever pressed onward to the things 
that were before. No sooner was " Pontiac " pub- 
lished than he strained in his leash to get after 
his great quarry, the English-French contest. But 
the devils of ill health leaped upon him. In the 
autumn of 1851 an effusion of water on the left 
knee lamed him ; a partial recovery was followed 
by a relapse, which came to a crisis in 1853 and 
shut him up in the house for two years. An odd 
consequence was that all the irritability of his 
nervous system centred in his head, causing him 
great pain. When he tried to fix his attention, 
he felt as if he had an iron band clamped around 
his head, like an old instrument of torture ; at 
other times his thoughts swooped through his 
brain like an infernal blast, with a horrid con- 
fusion of tossing pains. In the train of these 
furies followed sleepless nights. Work upon his 
history was impossible. Afterwards, when the 
rage of the crisis was spent, he betook himself 
to writing reviews of historical books, and in 
1856 he published a novel, " Vassall Morton." 
Perhaps in writing the novel he wished to occupy 
time which he could not use in graver work, per- 



228 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

haps he desired to prove himself in a new field. 
The novel was not a success. To most readers 
to-day, merely seeking selfish amusement, the 
book does not appear to have deserved success. 
Parkman himself rated it at its worth, or proba- 
bly at less than its worth ; he never spoke of it, 
and did not include it in his collected works. Its 
real interest is in the self-revelation of the au- 
thor ; for Vassall Morton, the hero, is undoubt- 
edly in great measure drawn from Parkman's 
own imagination of himself. The generation of 
that day, however, had its own appetite in novels, 
and people of taste here and there liked it. 

George William Curtis, in " Putnam's 
Monthly," said that " Vassall Morton " was far 
the best of late American novels, but that it 
was sketchy, as if tossed off in intervals of 
severer study, and not equal to what was to be 
expected from Parkman's position in literature. 



CHAPTEK XXI 

1858-1865 

The following years brought the great sorrows 
of his life ; in 1857 his little boy died, the next 
year his wife died, leaving him with two little 
girls, Grace and Katharine, and as if to prove 
him, body and soul at once, another fierce attack 
of his malady fell upon him. Some friend senti- 
mentally assumed that he had nothing more to 
live for, but his blunt answer intimated that 
Francis Parkman was not born to hoist the 
white flag. 

This attack of illness was so bad that the doc- 
tor hardly expected him to live, but Parkman 
meant to make a fight for life, and went to Paris 
to consult the famous physician, Brown-Sequard. 
On the steamer he met Professor Child. The fol- 
lowing letters show somewhat of his condition : 

PROFESSOR F. J. CHILD TO PARKMAN. 

Genoa, 21 January, [1859]. 

My dear Friend, — ... I must not ask 
about you because I know you cannot answer 



230 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

me by pen and ink. You will believe that though 
I have not written I have thought a great deal 
of you. I wish that you may have found at least 
some alleviation to your great sufferings in Paris, 
— or if not there in the mountains, — and I wish 
that we could meet every now and then, and go 
back in the same ship. My dear fellow, you can- 
not even read much, and so you must believe 
that there is a great deal in these last lines when 
I say that I shall never forget your magnanimous 
fortitude, that I felt an intense sympathy for 
you that I could not express when we were to- 
gether, and that I shall often pray God to help 
you, as I have constant occasion to do for other 
friends. 

Nice, 23 February, [1859]. 
... I begin faintly to realize what I have 
often supposed I thoroughly comprehended, — 
but did not, — that happiness in this world is 
par dessus le marche. I don't mean to talk like 
a philosopher. Your experience, given with such 
profound feeling and conviction in our first con- 
versation on board ship, ought never to be lost 
sight of by me. My dear fellow, I hope you get 
some comfort from heaven, if none on earth. 
Remember me kindly. I received your message. 
God bless you ever. 

Your affectionate friend, 

F. Child. 

This letter confirms what his closest friends 
knew, that, where Parkman met a man like 
Child, endowed by nature with ten talents for 
tenderness, he laid aside the grim aspect of his 



1858-1865 231 

reserve and showed his sensitiveness to affec- 
tion. 

Parkman stayed in Paris for several months. 
He wrote home some scraps of information about 
his health, in answer to a loving appeal from his 
sisters, " Do not write the best of it to us, write 
the whole ; " they were ready, as he knew, " to 
give their health to him," if only nature had 
allowed love to make the sacrifice. 

PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER. 

Paris, Dec. 22, '58. 
My dear Molly, — I got y'r letter yester- 
day with Grace's remarkable designs. I was 
very glad to hear from home. ... I am well 
lodged, Hotel de France, 239 Rue St. Honore — 
have felt much better since arriving. I find 
abundant occupation for the winter. I often see 
Anna Greene, and have been at Howland's and 
Mrs. Wharton's. For the rest, I shun Americans 
like the pest. I have not even given my address 
to my bankers, Hottinguer & Co., to whom 
please direct. I tell them to send my letters 
to Wm. Greene. I passed the Empress day be- 
fore yesterday, in the Bois de Boulogne ; I re- 
ceived a gracious bow in return of my salute. 
On the previous day, the heir of the Empress, 
about 3 years old, was walking with his gou- 
vernante and servants in the garden of the Tui- 
leries, while a line of Zouave sentinels kept the 
crowd at a safe distance. Paris is greatly 
changed since I was here 14 years ago. The 



232 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Emperor has made great improvements in many 
parts and added vastly to the beauty of the city. 
Tell Jack [his brother] I cannot advise him to 
come, as the cigars are very bad. Give my love 
to Grace [daughter], mother, Lizzie [sister], and 
aU. Y'rs affect'ly, F. 

SAME TO SAME. 

Paris, Jan. 13, 1859. 

My dear Moll, — I got y'r letter yesterday 
and Lizzy's some time ago. By this time all 
mine will have come. I wrote Dr. B. [Bigelow] 
that I was floored with lameness. It still con- 
tinues, but seems mending, so that I get about 
— drive all day (chiefly on omnibuses ! !), dine 
at 6, and commonly spend the evening at the 
cafes. I have seen Dr. Brown-Sequard, who fixed 
Sumner's head. He says he can soon cure the 
lameness, but that the head is quite another 
matter. He says, however, that it will not kill 
me, and at some remote period may possibly be- 
come better. He has 2 other cases of the kind 
but says they are very rare. I am still unable to 
walk more than 5 minutes at a time. ... 

I am greatly obliged to Uncle C. [Chardon] 
for his remembrance, and hope the youngster 
will do honor to the name. He should be 
brought up to some respectable calling, and not 
allowed to become a minister. . . . [He had a 
high regard for many of the clergy, but liked to 
chaff them as a body.] Love to Jack. Ditto 
to Grace, to whom I would send a little doll, if 
it would go into the letter. With love to mo- 
ther and Lizzy, Y'rs aff'ly, F. 



1858-1865 233 

PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER. 

Paris, Jan. 19, 1859. 
My dear Liz, — My knees are somewhat 
better, and I am about all day, sleep well, etc. 
So much for my corporeal state. I mean to stay 
here some time, as I am better off than else- 
where. ... I see Anna Greene almost daily. 
Greene is a capital fellow, and nothing of a par- 
son. X wrote me a long letter in which she 
advises me to leave Paris, as the contrast be- 
tween outward gayety and inward sin must grate 
dreadfully on my feelings! I used to think 
her a woman of sense and understanding. What 
the devil are your sex made of ? Also that I 
should leave my hotel and live at a boarding- 
house kept by a female friend of hers, where I 
should be surrounded by such kind people ! I 
shall stop off that sort of thing. 

Y'rs affec'ly, F. 

PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER. 

Paris, Feb. 30, 1859. 

My dear Molly, — I got y'r letter of Feb. 8 
about a week ago. I am a little less lame. I get 
on well enough. The omnibuses of Paris — of 
which there are about 700 — are made with rail- 
ings, etc., in such a way that with a little science I 
can swing myself to the top with the arms alone, 
and here I usually spend the better part of the 
day smoking cigarettes and surveying the crowds 
below. I have formed an extensive acquaintance 
among omnibus cads and the like, whom I find 
to be first-rate fellows in their way — also have 



234 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

learned pretty thoroughly the streets of Paris, 
where much may be seen from the top of an 
omnibus. When hungry or thirsty, I descend to 
any restaurant, cafe, or " buffet " that happens 
to be near, whether of low or high degree, if 
only clean. In fine weather, an hour or two may 
always be spent pleasantly enough, between 2 
and 5 o'clock, in the open air under the porches 
of the cafes on the Boulevards, where all Paris 
passes by. 1 

In one respect I have gained greatly from 
Brown-Sequard's treatment. The muscles, which 
ever since my first lameness have been very much 
reduced and weakened, are restored wholly to 
their natural size and strength, so that when the 
neuralgic pain subsides I shall be in a much 
better condition than before. . . . 

Y'rs aff'ly, F. 

His health, however, made but little gain, and 
he went home after the winter was over. From 
this time he lived with his mother and sisters, at 
their house in town in the winter, at his house 
hard by Jamaica Pond in the summer. His 
daughters had gone to live with their aunt, Miss 
Bigelow, for he was unable to take the charge 
of them. This little country-place on Jamaica 
Pond was one of the great pleasures in his life. 
He had bought the cottage, with three acres of 
garden about it, after his father's death, in 1852, 
and there he lived, in warm weather, all his life. 
1 Life of Prancis Parkman, pp. 101, 102. 



1858-1865 235 

It was on the border of Jamaica Pond that 
Parkman revealed a versatility of spirit which, 
in a man whose indomitable will was clinched 
upon a work of history, the dream of his boy- 
hood, may well quicken the most sluggish admi- 
ration. Balked in his course, pulled off from his 
chosen work, another man would have felt justi- 
fied in despair, at least in idleness ; not so he. 
His wife had given him the suggestion, " Frank, 
with all your getting, get roses." Up he got and 
made a garden of roses. He had three acres, his 
man Michael, such enrichment of the soil as a 
horse, a cow, and a pig could supply, a few 
garden implements, and a wheeled chair, or in 
happy seasons a cane ; with these he grew his 
beautiful roses, " Madame Henriette, rosy pink, 
very large and beautiful," " iEtna, brilliant crim- 
son tinted with purple," " Mariquita, white, 
lightly shaded, beautiful," " Marechal Niel, beau- 
tiful, deep yellow, large, full, and of globular 
form, very sweet, the shoots well clothed with 
large shining leaves," "Euphrosyne, creamy buff, 
very sweet and good," and a thousand more. Suc- 
cess led to a head-gardener, spadesman, and hoe- 
man, to greenhouse, hotbeds, hybrids, horticul- 
tural shows, medals, and all the pomp that Flora 
showers on her successful bedesmen. He loved 
what he calls " that gracious art which through 
all time has been the companion and symbol of 



236 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

peace ; an art joined in the closest ties with Na- 
ture, and her helper in the daily miracle by 
which she works beauty out of foulness and life 
out of corruption ; an art so tranquillizing and 
so benign ; so rich in consolations and plea- 
sures." He turned to Nature like a lover, and 
with the industry and will of a man who meant 
to be " a jolly thriving wooer." His character 
was his art. In " The Book of Roses " he says : — 

One point cannot be too often urged in re- 
spect to horticultural pursuits. Never attempt 
to do anything which you are not prepared to do 
thoroughly. A little done well is far more satis- 
factory than a great deal done carelessly and 
superficially. . . . The amateur who has made 
himself a thorough master of the cultivation of 
a single species or variety has, of necessity, ac- 
quired a knowledge and skill which, with very 
little pains, he may apply to numberless other 
forms of culture. 

This is the way he went to work for a bed of 
roses. He took a plot some sixty feet long by 
forty wide, his gardener dug it, turned it, spaded 
it, and hoed it two feet and a half deep. Then 
a layer of manure was spread at a depth of 
eighteen inches ; on top of that a spaded mix- 
ture of native yellow loam nicely intermin- 
gled with black surface soil was shoveled in ; 
then, this time nine inches deep, a second layer 
of manure, and again on top of that a shoveling 



1858-1865 237 

of the nicely intermingled dirt. On top of the 
bed he spread a third layer of manure, with a 
goodly supply of sandy road-scrapings. Each 
act was performed with sacerdotal exactness. 
The manure was not home-got, for he had " found 
no enriching material so good as the sweepings 
from the floor of a horseshoer, in which manure 
is mixed with the shavings of hoofs," — it was 
light and porous, and altogether deserving of 
commendation. 

Sometimes in his wheeled chair he would pro- 
pel himself from tuft to tuft, armed with trowel 
or sickle, but he liked best to superintend some 
delicate manoeuvre, as of sowing the seeds of 
roses ; there he sat, one hand on a wheel, to 
revolve himself along the edge of the bed, — 
carefully made of loam, old manure, leaf -mould, 
and sand, — and with the other hand scattered 
broadcast and thick over the expectant ground 
seeds born of some marriage of horticultural con- 
venance contrived by himself. Thus he came to 
love stocks, stalks, runners, creepers, corollas, 
pistils, stamens ; and, love of science mingling 
with his love of beauty, he gradually devoted 
himself almost exclusively to the hybridization 
of lilies and the cultivation of roses. Thus forced 
to leave library and desk, and the long lists of 
catalogued and ticketed manuscripts, he betook 
himself to the business of growing and selling 



238 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

flowers. He was better at growing than at sell- 
ing, and took a partner for a season. 

PARKMAN TO MRS. SAM. PARKMAN. 

Jamaica Plain, Ap. 4, 1862. 
My dear Mary, — ... I am daily here — in 
Jamaica Plain — and am at last really busy, hav- 
ing formed a partnership with Spooner [a florist 
which will absorb all the working faculties 
have left. So you find me a man of business. 
am content with the move, and resolved to give 
the thing a fair trial, and, by one end of the 
horn or the other, work a way out of a condi- 
tion of helplessness. At all events, this is my 
best chance, and I will give it a trial. Spooner 
wants me to go to England and France in the 
fall, to look up new plants. The thing has dif- 
ficulties and risks, not a few under any circum- 
stances ; but is attractive, and doubly so as it 
gives me a prospect of meeting you. So I cherish 
it, as probably an illusion, but still a very pleas- 
ing one. Turning tradesman has agreed with 
me so far. Several bushels of historical MSS. 
and fragments of abortive chapters have been 
packed under lock and key, to bide their time. 
Affecly y'rs, F. P. 

The firm did not make money, and dissolved 
within a year. Parkman continued to labor in 
his garden. He became member, and finally 
president, of the Massachusetts Horticultural So- 
ciety, and in due course won hundreds of prizes 
at the flower shows. His experiments in hybridi- 



1858-1865 239 

zation of lilies were most careful, and (so Pro- 
fessor Goodale says) there are no better lessons 
on this subject for the botanical student than 
Parkman's own narrative of what he did. He 
wished to combine two Japanese lilies, that they 
should not " live unwooed and unrespected fade," 
the Lily Beautiful, with lancet leaves, and the 
Lily Golden ; the former was to be the bride. 
Four or five varieties, in color from pure white 
to deep red, were tended in pots under glass, for 
the Lily Beautiful will not ripen its seed un- 
coaxed in New England air. When the flowers 
were on the point of opening, Parkman took a 
forceps and removed all the anthers from the 
expanding buds, — the pollen at that period was 
still wholly unripe, and self-impregnation was 
impossible. He then applied the pollen of the 
Lily Golden to the pistils of the Lily Beautiful 
as soon as they were in a condition to receive it. 
Conception took place, the pods swelled, and 
the seed ripened ; though the pods looked full, 
they held less seeds than chaff, and these seeds 
were rough and wrinkled, not like the smooth 
seeds of the Lily Beautiful when left to itself. 
Fifty seedlings were got, their stems all mottled 
like the father plant ; " the infant bulbs were 
pricked out into a cold frame " and left there 
three or four years ; then they were planted in a 
bed for blooming. One bud at last opened, and 



240 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

spread its flower nine and a half inches in di- 
ameter, resembling its father in fragrance and 
form, its mother in color ; the next year the bulb 
produced a flower whose extended petals mea- 
sured twelve inches from tip to tip, and taken 
to England it produced other flowers fourteen 
inches across. This was the famous Lilium 
Parkmanni. 1 The other forty-nine hybrids all 
put forth flowers like their mother's. 

In 1866 he published " The Book of Roses," 
in which he told the various processes of culti- 
vation, training, and propagation, — both in 
open ground and in pots, — and gave accounts 
of the various families and groups, with descrip- 
tions of the best varieties. Among other fruits 
of this book was this letter : — 

Esteemed Sir, — Allow one of your most ar- 
dent admirers to address you, for the purpose of 
obtaining from you a floral sentiment and your 
autograph. I am a great lover of flowers and 
the beauties of nature in general, and being well 
aware of the fact that you are a great floricul- 
tural historian, I take the liberty to address you. 
May I kindly ask if you will favor me with a 
quotation from your " Book of Roses " or else 
some sublime floral sentiment which may occur 
to your mind. 

I am the fortunate possessor of floral senti- 
ments from the pen of such celebrated botanists, 

1 Sold at last to an English florist for a thousand dollars. 



1858-1865 241 

floriculturists, and pomologists as . . . [the quick 
and the dead]. I assure you, sir, that such a 
contribution from you will be highly valued and 
appreciated, and long after you shall have gone 
to join that grand and immortal army of floral 
writers this contribution will be sacred to me. 
My object is only to possess letters or quotations 
dwelling on floriculture. If you cannot think of 
anything appropriate, will you kindly write for 
me those exquisite words of the late Solon Rob- 
inson, " A love of flowers is a love of the beauti- 
ful, and a love of the beautiful is a love of the 
good," from his " Facts for Farmers " (1864), 
p. 500. 

Whether Mr. Parkman gave a floricultural or 
a pomological sentiment, or none, is not known. 

Outdoor occupation did him good, but per- 
haps the tenderness of the flowers — comforters 
who comfort and ask neither thanks nor confi- 
dence in return — did him more good still. The 
whole garden was delightful, — the best of phy- 
sicians, the best of friends. Sometimes in the 
richness of the blossoming time the colors were 
too heavily laid on by the horticultural hand ; 

The fay re grassy grownd 
Mantled with green, and goodly beautifide 
With all the ornaments of Floraes pride, 
Wherewith her mother Art, as halfe in scorn 
Of niggard Nature, like a pompous bride 
Did decke her, and too lavishly adorne — 

was too red and pink and yellow. The azaleas, 



242 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

rhododendrons, magnolias, syringas, lilacs, and 
the big scarlet Parkman poppies were too bold 
for a less scientific eye, and overshadowed the 
columbine, foxglove, larkspur, violet, even the 
Japanese iris, whose seeds had been fetched from 
the Mikado's garden, and all the wee, modest 
flowers; but people would drive thither many 
miles to see the splendor of the blossoms. 

The garden was of modest dimensions and 
sloped down sharply to the shore, so that the lit- 
tle walk from the house to the dock on the pond's 
edge ran past all the vegetable friends, trees, 
shrubs, and plants. There were a tall, wide- 
spreading beech, elms sixty feet high, a big chest- 
nut, a tulip, a plane-tree, two white oaks, a 
sassafras, Scottish maples and scarlet maples, 
lindens, willows, pines, and hemlocks ; and hold- 
ing themselves a little aloof, as befitted their 
rarity and breeding, a Kentucky coffee-tree, a 
gingko, the magnolia acuminata, and the Park- 
man crab, first of its kind in New England, 
radiant with its bright-colored flowers. 

Parkman always lived comfortably but sim- 
ply, for though he had inherited a competence 
from his father, his books brought him in little, 
— even in his first days of fame he received 
hardty more, as he said, than the wages of a 
day-laborer, — and his researches were very ex- 
pensive, and horticulture paid little. At the 



1858-1865 243 

time of the partnership he was troubled by the 
thought that for the firm's benefit it might be his 
duty to sell the garden ; but he was not obliged 
to make that sacrifice. His purse gradually be- 
came somewhat heavier, so that in 1874 he was 
able to build a pleasant house in place of the 
original cottage. 

I have not finished the list of Parkman's ills. 
He was forced to endure anew the poison of in- 
action when the Civil War broke out, and the 
"hand that should have grasped the sword" — 
an itching palm — could hold nothing but the 
trowel or the pen. He, with his heart and soul 
in the Union cause, and believing in the enforce- 
ment of right by might, was compelled to sit 
and hear the President's call for troops, to sit 
and read Governor Andrew's proclamation, to 
sit and see his friends and kinsmen ride away 
to the front, and in a wheeled chair or darkened 
room to receive the news of battle, of defeat, of 
victory. This was bitterer than any pain. 

As he himself said : — 

Who can ever forget the day when from spires 
and domes, windows and housetops, the stars and 
stripes were flung to the wind, in token that the 
land was roused at last from deadly torpor. They 
were the signals of a new life ; portentous of 
storm and battle, yet radiant with hope. Our 
flag was never so glorious. On that day it be- 



244 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

came the emblem of truth and right and justice. 
Through it a mighty* people proclaimed a new 
faith — that peace, wealth, ease, material pro- 
gress were not the sum and substance of all good. 
Loyalty to it became loyalty to humanity and 
God. The shackles of generations were thrown 
off. We were a people disenthralled, rising from 
abasement abject and insupportable. 

There is not a chapter in his books which does 
not show that the bent of his spirit was to fight 
by day in the forest, and bivouac by night under 
the stars ; and yet while a million men were under 
arms he was not able to take any part, even the 
very least. This was his purgatory ; he sat with 
outward calm and inward wrath in his town 
house or on the banks of Jamaica Pond and 
wrote " The Book of Roses," and put together 
page by page " The Pioneers of New France." 
He was a stoic, and believed the stoic's creed, 
that the ills of life should be accepted at the 
hands of fate without petulance, without spleen, 
with no word, not merely not complaining, but not 
demanding sympathy, not telling even friendly 
ears. He believed in the virtue of silent forti- 
tude. This rule he deliberately put aside for 
once. Before the close of the war he wrote the 
brief autobiographical letter published in Mr. 
Farnham's Life, which shows how much (in his 
uncertainty of life and of strength to labor) he 
wished the world to know that while his friends 



1858-1865 245 

were dying for a great cause, he was not un- 
worthy of their friendship, and that but for hos- 
tile fate he too would have accomplished no un- 
worthy thing. This letter, indorsed " Not to be 
used during my life," was sent to Dr. George E. 
Ellis in 1868, with a note saying: — 

My dear Friend, — Running my eye over 
this paper, I am more than ever struck with its 
egoism, which makes it totally unfit for any eye 
but that of one in close personal relations with 
me. It resulted from a desire — natural, per- 
haps, but which may just as well be suppressed 
— to make known the extreme difficulties which 
have reduced to very small proportions what 
might otherwise have been a good measure of 
achievement. Having once begun it, I went on 
with it, though convinced that it was wholly un- 
suited to see the light. Physiologically consid- 
ered, the case is rather curious. ... If I had 
my life to live over again, I would follow exactly 
the same course again, only with less vehemence. 
Very cordially, F. Parkman. 

He wrote a very similar, almost identical, let- 
ter in 1886 to Mr. Martin Brimmer, which is 
printed in the appendix. Both letters were kept 
secret till after Parkman's death, in accordance 
with his instructions. 



CHAPTER XXII 

HISTORY AND FAME 

The first volume of the great series on France 
and England in North America was not pub- 
lished till 1865. In the preface he writes : — 

To those who have aided him with information 
and documents, the extreme slowness in the pro- 
gress of the work will naturally have caused sur- 
prise. This slowness was unavoidable. During 
the past eighteen years, the state of his health 
has exacted throughout an extreme caution in 
regard to mental application, reducing it at best 
within narrow and precarious limits, and often 
precluding it. Indeed, for two periods, each of 
several years, any attempt at bookish occupation 
would have been merely suicidal. A condition of 
sight arising from kindred sources has also re- 
tarded the work, since it has never permitted 
reading or writing continuously for much more 
than five minutes, and often has not permitted 
them at all. 

Thus, so far as concerns his history, the record 
of these laborious years, doing " day labor, light 
denied," is chiefly a chronicle of the spirit domi- 
nating continuous insurrections of the body. It 



HISTORY AND FAME 247 

is the story of a prize-fight — a bout, a respite, 
again a toeing of the line, again blows hard and 
heavy, and Parkman again and again coming 
back to the scratch, on guard, teeth set, and reso- 
lute " never to submit or yield." The cause of 
all these ills was the subject of great disagree- 
ment among physicians ; Dr. George M. Gould, 
of Philadelphia, has written a very interesting 
monograph to prove that unsymmetric astigma- 
tism and anisometropia were the prime devils in 
his body. Sed non nobis — Procul, profanif 
Enough of this, as he himself would have said. 

At the time he published " The Pioneers of 
France in the New World " he had written parts 
of later volumes, near a third of " The Jesuits," 
a half of " La Salle ; " also the material for 
" Frontenac " was partially arranged for compo- 
sition, and most of the material for the whole 
series had been collected and was within reach. 
"The Pioneers" could not fail of flattering 
criticism from the newspapers; the episode of 
Menendez and Dominique de Gourgues, the 
story of Champlain, have all the spirit of the 
" Trois Mousquetaires " and all the accuracy of 
Agassiz. The "Tribune" ventured to say to 
New Yorkers that " in vigor and pointedness of 
description, Mr. Parkman may be counted supe- 
rior to Irving ; " and the " Nation " said, " This 
book will add his name to the list of those his- 






248 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

torians who have done honor to American liter- 
ature." 

The other volumes followed with louder and 
louder choruses of applause, — " The Jesuits in 
North America " in 1867, " La Salle and the 
Discovery of the Great West" in 1869, the 
" Old Regime " in 1874, " Frontenac " in 1877, 
" Montcalm and Wolfe " in 1884, for here he 
broke the sequence of his story in order that he 
might run no risk, but complete while yet time 
served the last great scene of the play. After- 
wards, in 1892, he published the " Half Century 
of Conflict," and the long day's work was done. 

The careless, pleasure-loving reader, who skips 
prefaces and notes, might rashly conclude that 
what is so delightful to read is not to be classed 
with " profitable " books of research, — which 
commonly have the charm of a law book and 
read like a dictionary ; to such readers a page or 
two must be addressed. In the preface to the 
" Pioneers " Parkman says : — 

Faithfulness to the truth of history involves 
far more than a research, however patient and 
scrupulous, into special facts. . . . The narrator 
must seek to imbue himself with the life and 
spirit of the time. He must study events in 
their bearings near and remote ; in the char- 
acter, habits, and manners of those who took 
part in them. . . . With respect to that spe- 
cial research which, if inadequate, is still in the 



HISTORY AND FAME 249 

most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been 
the writer's aim to exhaust the existing material 
of every subject treated. . . . With respect to 
the general preparation, ... he has long been 
too fond of this theme to neglect any means 
within his reach of making his conception of it 
distinct and true. 

For the second volume, " The Jesuits in North 
America," there was a mass of materials, as 
" nearly every prominent actor left his own re- 
cord of events," and all the documents connected 
with the Jesuits had to be studied and compared. 
For " La Salle " he had to examine volumes of 
manuscript drawn from the public archives of 
France. For the " Old Regime " the story is very 
much the same. For " Montcalm and Wolfe," be- 
sides books, pamphlets, brochures, memoirs, re- 
ports, documents, and all the multitudinous forms 
of print, — brevier, long primer, small pica, not to 
forget Borgis, nonpareille, Garmond, and Cicero, 
and all the other outlandish types of foreign 
lands, — six thousand folio pages of manuscript 
had been copied from the Archives de la Marine 
et des Colonies, the Archives de la Guerre, and 
the Archives Nationales at Paris ; ten volumes 
of copies had been made from the Public Record 
Office and the British Museum in London ; and 
on the heels of these he had to listen to the slow 
deciphering of cramped writing, crabbed writing, 
hasty, blotted, blurred writing, faded writing, 



250 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

unpunctuated writing, — all sorts of writing, ab- 
breviated by caprice and the waywardest fancy, 
naturally bad, worsened by time, by the corrup- 
tions of moth and dust, and all the foes of his- 
tory. So, too, it was for the " Half Century of 
Conflict." 

In the upper hall of the house of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society stands a large wooden 
press, — a bookcase with doors ; over the top is 
carved Parkman's name. Within are his manu- 
scripts, given by him to the Society. They not 
only tell of all the work he did, but they talk 
about him, and boast of the proud and affec- 
tionate interest he took in them. There the vol- 
umes of MSS. stand bound in their bindings, 
differing in degree according to size and dig- 
nity. There are the early-gathered " Pontiac 
Miscellanies " in big, red, shiny leather, with gilt 
lettered backs, standing eighteen inches high 
and near two inches thick, — neat copies of docu- 
ments ; one volume of them, of less elegant cal- 
ligraphy, in Parkman's own hand, copied from 
records in the Maryland Historical Society in 
1845. Next them come the letters of Pedro Me- 
nendez, the cruel Spaniard ; and following him 
more great big red books, copied for Francis 
Parkman, Esq., by Ben : Perley Poore, Historical 
Agent of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as 
the frontispiece recounts in pied letters of great 



HISTORY AND FAME 251 

brilliancy. Very creditable calligraphy they 
are. Then follow volumes in rows, — volumes 
of " Correspondance Officiate," 1621-1679; vol- 
umes on Acadia, Isle Royale, Canada ; volumes 
of documents copied from the Public Record 
Office in London ; volumes of Dinwiddie's let- 
ters, — these last in green leather, in self-satisfied 
distinction from their fellows. Then other vol- 
umes, English and French, of which none is more 
interesting than the " Voyage dans le Gulfe de 
Mexique," written by La Salle's brother, an old 
manuscript bought at a sale in London in 1857 
for 148.50, as the fly-leaf says. It begins : — 

Monseigneur, — Voicy la Relation du voy- 
age que mon f rere entreprit pour decouvrir dans 
le golfe du mexique, l'embouchure du fleuve de 
missisippy, une mort inopinee et tragique l'ayant 
empeche de le parachever et d'en rendre Conte 
a votre grandeur, j'espere quelle agreera que je 
suplee a son defaut. 

In the days of Louis XIV even death was a 
poor excuse for not fulfilling the punctilios due 
the king. 

Following these big books come little note- 
books of Parkman's own keeping, loose sheets, 
letters, journals, little parcels of papers neatly 
tied with ribbon, the MSS. of one or two of the 
histories, and a guerilla band of those enemies 
of peace and order, " Sundry documents." 



252 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

His printed books, several thousands, were 
kept in his study on the third story of No. 50 
Chestnut Street ; so were the MSS. before they 
were given to the Historical Society. Up in 
that study he used to sit all the winter months, 
in the company of his books and manuscripts, 
while the fire from the open stove flickered sal- 
utations to the shelves opposite, and the books 
stared back at trophies got forty years before 
on the Oregon trail, — bow, arrows, shield, pipe 
of peace, hanging tamely on the wall ; the little 
bronze cats on the mantelpiece played undis- 
mayed beside the couchant Barye lioness, em- 
bodiment of the eternal struggle, the triumph 
of the strong, the ruin of the weak ; and Sir 
Jeffrey Amherst, out from his engraving after 
Reynolds's portrait, his head resting pensively 
on one hand, careless of baton and helmet, gazed 
ruminatingly at his fellow pictures, prints of the 
" Catterskills," of the ruins of Ticonderoga, of 
Lake George. From other walls Sir Walter 
Scott, a lion, and a cat looked gravely at Colonel 
Shaw, Colleoni, Diirer's Knight (a favorite), 
and at the facade of Notre Dame ; but pictures 
had no great liberty of place, for the bookshelves 
spread themselves over most of the room. 

Parkman used to sit in a simple easy-chair, 
his feet near the stove, while his sister, at a little 
table beside the window, wrote at his dictation. 



HISTORY AND FAME 253 

But when his work was over, as the short win- 
ter twilights hurried away, his thoughts often 
must have wandered back over the forty years 
spent in the wilderness of physical ills, and with 
his jaw set firm, but with his kind heart un- 
strung, he must have remembered the old days 
of boyhood, of health, of promise, when Nature, 
too, was young and beautiful and savage, and 
perhaps he repeated the words of his youth : — 

Thus to look back with a fond longing to inhos- 
pitable deserts, where men, beasts, and Nature 
herself, seem arrayed in arms, and where ease, 
security, and all that civilization reckons among 
the goods of life, are alike cut off, may appear 
to argue some strange perversity, and yet such 
has been the experience of many a sound and 
healthful mind. To him who has once tasted 
the reckless independence, the haughty self-reli- 
ance, the sense of irresponsible freedom, which 
the forest life engenders, civilization thenceforth 
seems flat and stale. Its pleasures are insipid, 
its pursuits wearisome, its conventionalities, du- 
ties, and mutual dependence, alike tedious and 
disgusting. . . . The wilderness, rough, harsh, 
and inexorable, has charms more potent in their 
seductive influence than all the lures of luxury 
and sloth. There is a chord in the hearts of 
most men, prompt to answer loudly or faintly, 
as the case may be, to such rude appeals. But 
there is influence of another sort, strongest with 
minds of the finest texture, yet sometimes hold- 
ing a controlling power over those who neither 



254 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

acknowledge nor suspect its workings. There 
are so few imbruted by vice, so perverted by art 
and luxury, as to dwell in the closest presence 
of Nature, deaf to her voice of melody and 
power, untouched by the ennobling influences 
which mould and penetrate the heart that has 
not hardened itself against them. Into the spirit 
of such an one the mountain wind breathes its 
own freshness, and the midsummer tempest, as 
it rends the forest, pours its own fierce energy. 
... It is the grand and heroic in the hearts of 
men which finds its worthiest symbol and noblest 
aspiration amid these desert realms — in the 
mountain and in the interminable forest. 1 

So spake the lover at twenty-three, in the lux- 
uriant exuberance of love and youth ; so thought 
the old man, thinking of his mistress whom he 
had not seen for forty years. Perhaps to his 
thin determined lips and firm-set jaw, up from 
his modest heart, came the ancient benedic- 
tion, — 

Blessed of the Lord be his land, 

For the precious things of heaven, for the dew, 

And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, 

And for the precious things of the lasting hills, 

And for the precious things of the earth and fulness 

thereof, 
And for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush. 

As I have said, his reputation increased as 
the series advanced, and on the publication of 
" Montcalm and Wolfe " he reached the height 
1 Pontiac, vol. ii. pp. 237-239. 



HISTORY AND FAME 255 

of his fame ; this book he and the world re- 
garded as his best. He could then feel that, 
even should he not fill in the intervening half 
century between Frontenac and Montcalm, his 
work had been in substance done, that his en- 
durance had overcome its enemies. He enjoyed 
applause, not so much that of the public — for 
he had a smack of Coriolanus's opinion on the 
" raskell many " — as that of men whose judg- 
ment was trained and instructed, and whose 
speech was measured. 

MR. HENRY ADAMS TO PARKMAN. 

[Washington], 21 December, 1884. 

My dear Parkman, — Your two volumes on 
Montcalm and Wolfe deserve much more care- 
ful study than I am competent to give them, 
and so far as I can see, you have so thoroughly 
exhausted your sources as to leave little or 
nothing new to be said. The book puts you in 
the front rank of living English historians, and 
I regret only that the field is self-limited so that 
you can cultivate it no further. Your book 
is a model of thorough and impartial study and 
clear statement. Of its style and narrative the 
highest praise is that they are on a level with its 
thoroughness of study. Taken as a whole, your 
works are now dignified by proportions and com- 
pleteness which can be hardly paralleled by the 
" literary baggage " of any other historical writer 
in the language known to me to-day. . . . 

Ever truly y'rs, Henry Adams. 



256 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

MR. E. L. GODKIN TO PARKMAN. 

[New York], Dec. 14, 1885. 

My dear Parkman, — I have just finished 
your " Wolfe and Montcalm," and I cannot help 
doing what I have never done before — write to 
tell the author with what delight I read it. I do 
not think I have ever been so much enchained 
by a historical book, although I was passionately 
fond of history in my boyhood. Wolfe, too, was 
one of my earliest heroes, and although I have 
been familiar for over forty years with his story, 
I became almost tremulous with anxiety about 
the result of the night attack when reading your 
account of the final preparations, a few evenings 
ago. 

What became of Montcalm's family ? Has he 
any descendants now ? What a pathetic tale 
his is ! 

. . . Thank you most sincerely for a great 
pleasure. Yours very sincerely, 

E. L. Godkin. 

A later letter, 1887, characteristically says : 
"I hope you are well and busy. JV6 one else 
does nearly as much for American literature. 
This is ' gospel truth.' " 

MR. HENRY JAMES TO PARKMAN. 

Dover, [England], August 24th, [1885]. 

My dear Parkman, — This is only three 
lines, because I cannot hold my hand from tell- 
ing you, as other people must have done to your 
final weariness, with what high appreciation and 
genuine gratitude I have been reading your 



HISTORY AND FAME 257 

" Wolfe and Montcalm." (You see I am still so 
overturned by my emotion that I can't even 
write the name straight.) I have found the right 
time to read it only during the last fortnight, 
and it has fascinated me from the first page to 
the last. You know, of course, much better than 
any one else how good it is, but it may not be 
absolutely intolerable to you to learn how good 
still another reader thinks it. The manner in 
which you have treated the prodigious theme is 
worthy of the theme itself, and that says every- 
thing. It is truly a noble book, my dear Park- 
man, and you must let me congratulate you, 
with the heartiest friendliness, on having given 
it to the world. So be as proud as possible of 
being the author of it, and let your friends be 
almost as proud of possessing his acquaintance. 
Reading it here by the summer smooth channel 
with the gleaming French coast, from my win- 
dows, looking on some clear days only five miles 
distant, and the guns of old England pointed sea- 
ward, from the rambling, historic castle, perched 
above me upon the downs ; reading it, I say, 
among these influences, it has stirred all sorts 
of feelings — none of them, however, incompat- 
ible with a great satisfaction that the American 
land should have the credit of a production so 
solid and so artistic. . . . Believe in the per- 
sonal gratitude of yours, ever very faithfully, 

H. James. 

MR. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO PARKMAN. 

31, Lowndes Square, [London], S. W., 8th Deer., 1884. 
Dear Parkman, — I have just done reading 
your book, and write a line to thank you for 



258 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

what has been so great a pleasure. It went as 
delightfully as floating down one of the forest 
streams where your scene is laid. You have done 
nothing better, and you know how I liked the 
others. Faithfully yours, 

J. K. Lowell. 

MR. GEORGE BANCROFT TO PARKMAN. 

Washington, D. C, 28 Nov., 1884. 

Dear Mr. Parkman, — I am delighted at 
receiving from you under your own hand these 
two new volumes with which you delight your 
friends and instruct readers in both worlds. 
You belong so thoroughly to the same course of 
life which I have chosen that I follow your 
career as a fellow soldier, striving to promote 
the noblest ends, and I take delight in your 
honors as much or more than I should my own. 
You have just everything which go to make an 
historian — persistency in collecting materials, 
indefatigable industry in using them, swift dis- 
cernment of the truth, integrity and intrepidity 
in giving utterance to truth, a kindly human- 
ity which is essential to the true historian, and 
which gives the key to all hearts, and a clear and 
graceful and glowing manner of narration. I 
claim like yourself to have been employed ear- 
nestly, and pray you to hold me to be in all sin- 
cerity and affectionate regard, 

Your fellow laborer and friend, 

Geo. Bancroft. 

Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge dedicated his " His- 
torical and Political Essays " to Parkmau, — 



HISTORY AND FAME 259 

"To Francis Parkman, in token of admiration 
for his great work as an American historian and 
for his character as a man " — - and at the time 
wrote this letter : — 

Nov. 11th, [1892]. 
Dear Mr. Parkman, — I send herewith a 
little volume of essays, which I have taken the 
liberty and given myself the great pleasure of 
dedicating to you. ... I should have liked to 
have had time to write an article on the com- 
pletion of your history, but politics have so en- 
grossed me of late that literature has gone to 
the wall. But I wished in some public fashion 
to express the great admiration I feel for your 
writings and for your services to American his- 
tory, and also for the character, courage, and 
will which have enabled you to do such work 
despite the obstacles with which you contended 
and which you have so entirely overcome. May 
I add that I also wished to express my very 
strong personal regard for you. The dedication 
cannot possibly give you the pleasure that it 
gives me, but I venture to hope that you will 
accept it. Sincerely y'rs, 

H. C. Lodge. 

Mr. Theodore Roosevelt dedicated " The Win- 
ning of the West " to Parkman, having first writ- 
ten this letter to ask permission : — 

Oyster Bay, Long Island, N. Y., 
April 23d, '88. 

My dear Sir, — I suppose that every Ameri- 
can who cares at all for the history of his own 



260 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

country feels a certain personal pride in your 
work — it is as if Motley had written about 
American instead of European subjects, and so 
was doubly our own ; but those of us who have 
a taste for history, and yet have spent much of 
our time on the frontier, perhaps realize even 
more keenly than our fellows that your works 
stand alone, and that they must be models for 
all historical treatment of the founding of new 
communities and the growth of the frontier here 
in the wilderness. This — even more than the 
many pleasant hours I owe you — must be my 
excuse for writing. 

I am engaged on a work of which the first 
part treats of the extension of our frontier west- 
ward and southwestward during the twenty odd 
years from 1774 to 1796. . . . This first part I 
have promised the Putnams for some time in 
1889 ; it will be in two volumes, with some such 
title as " The Winning of the West and South- 
west." . . . 

I should like to dedicate this to you. Of course 
I know that you would not wish your name to be 
connected, in even the most indirect way, with 
any but good work ; and I can only say, that I 
will do my best to make the work creditable. . . . 
Yours very truly, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

MR. JUSTIN WINSOR TO PARKMAN. 

Cambridge, May 23, '92. 
Dear Parkman, — ... I read your " Pon- 
tiac" when I was in college, and I have not failed 
to read each succeeding work of yours upon its 



HISTORY AND FAME 261 

publication. In the last ten years I have seldom 
had them off my study table, for work I have 
been upon has often — almost constantly — taken 
me to them ; and always with increasing admira- 
tion. Believe me faithfully yours, 

Justin Winsor. 

Just before his death he was invited to at- 
tend the World's Congress of Historians, at 
the World's Fair, in Chicago, as " The Nestor 
and most beloved of American Historians." I 
cite these letters because scholars say that " no 
one who has not prosecuted some original re- 
search on the same lines can have an idea of the 
extreme care with which he [Parkman] worked, 
or of the almost petty detail which he was at 
pains to master, not necessarily to use, but sim- 
ply to inform himself thoroughly of the circum- 
stances or of the man [of which or whom he 
was writing]." For though he always wished to 
make his books delightful to read, he never used 
his imagination except as a means to discover 
and to combine the jots and tittles of accurate 
detail. 

There were also tributes from persons less 
well known. 

Hon. Francis Parkman : 

Dear Sir, — Hoping and begging, I write 
you asking you if you will be so very kind as to 
give me your " autograph " — please may I have 



262 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

it ? I would feel most highly honored to receive 
and love dearly to possess your autograph. And 
if it is pleasing to you, Dear Sir ! to favor me 
with a line or favorite sentiment — I will ever 
be most grateful for your exquisite kindness 
— for it will be to me a " precious souvenir " 
of a " Divinely gifted and most illustrious gen- 
tleman " whose name is dearly familiar and 
whose " noble researches " and "grand and bril- 
liant " Historical writings which ever charm and 
enlighten the world — have endeared you to 
all hearts, as the most " famous and brilliantly 
gifted Historian of the world." . . . 

To Hon. Francis Parkman, " Author," " King of His- 
torians." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 

Parkman's history is in substance a history of 
Canada, and in that country aroused great inter- 
est and admiration ancTalso some dissatisfaction 
and dissent. Canadians almost unanimously ac- 
knowledged that Canada was greatly indebted to 
him for fame and honor : for, before Parkman 
wrote, on the south side of the border there was 
little information and much prejudice in regard 
to the past of our northern neighbor ; in Eng- 
land there were but hazy ideas of an uninterest- 
ing agricultural province, momentarily illumi- 
nated by the exploit of an Englishman on the 
Plains of Abraham ; and in France, Canada was 
but a vague and mortifying memory. English- 
speakers did not read the books of French Cana- 
dians, and for them Parkman put the history of 
Canada on a level of interest and importance 
equal to that, as statesmen say, of the most 
favored nation ; before him, there was a history 
in English by William Smith, and the extent to 
which Mr. William Smith's history failed to 



264 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

dispel the general darkness of ignorance holds 
out a measure by which we can judge what 
Parkman did for Canada. 

The criticism which he received, sometimes 
bitter, came from French Canadians, not wholly 
able to forget that they represented a fallen 
cause ; they had remained loyal to that cause, 
with the loyalty that forgets defects ajaAU^jag^ 
virtues. The los t cau se w^s not OJ^H 
nation, charurfj^HnMH whose birth alkl 

breeding cut tnfl^WHEronM^J^reci a $Q$, but 
also that of a church, sacred with allthe affec- 
tion that men cherish for their mothers. They 
could not enjoy the story which told how that 
nation and that church had been vanquished by 
their common- foe, and, as the story was told, 
justly vanquished ; for the teller, despite gener- 
ous and impartial sympathy, believed that the 
side upon which the right on the whole prepon- 
derated had prevailed. That the victory had 
been deserved was, in Parkman's judgment, the 
verdict of history ; but what man is there, who 
belongs to the side which has lost, who can pa- 
tiently endure to hear Rhadamanthus say, " You 
have received your deserts." Thus there was 
some feeling against Parkman, and when in 
1878 some of the gentlemen of Laval Univer- 
sit}% the distinguished Catholic university at 
Quebec, wishing to honor him, even if in their 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 265 

judgment sometimes astray, proposed that the 
university should confer the degree of Doctor of 
Letters upon him, there was warm opposition. 
Hot words were spoken, strong feelings were 
strongly expressed ; the conservatives carried the 
day, and the degree was denied. On the other 
hand, in the following year, the English univer- 
sity at Montreal, McGill, gave him the degree 
of Doctor of Laws. He was also chosen hono- 
rary member of the Literary and Historical So- 
ciety of Quebec, and a corresponding member of 
the Royal Society of Canada. 

The opposition of adverse critics troubled 
Parkman very little. He took no position on a 
matter of history until he had studied it with 
great care, and with all the impartiality that was 
possible. 

On his visits to Canada Parkman naturally 
visited his friends and not his critics, and from 
them he always received the kindest hospitality. 
Quebec, as the historic centre of Canada, was 
his headquarters, and there he had very warm 
friends; in earlier days Judge Black, Judge Stu- 
art, and all his life Sir James M. Le Moine, the 
latter a man of letters and student of history, 
whose country-seat, Spencer Grange, is not far 
from the site where the gallant Levis routed Gen- 
eral Murray. In the company of these gentle- 
men Parkman would wander over the battlefields 



266 FRANCIS FARKMAN 

from Cap Rouge on the west to the Falls of 
Montmorency on the east, examining the historic 
spots, such as Sillery, a little village on the north 
bank of the river, famous as possessing the oldest 
house in Canada, and in the brave days of old 
crowned with a French battery. Their friendly 
commerce was fittingly accompanied, following 
the best Hellenic traditions, by interchange of 
gifts. He had friendships, too, with several 
French Canadians, gentlemen of Quebec, who 
were interested in Canadian history. Such was 
M. Hubert La Rue, who always held out a warm 
welcome: "Rendez-vous tout droit a la maison, ou 
votre petite chambre du fonds vous attend avec 
impatience." He made a friendly acquaintance 
with M. Ferland, Abbe Laverdiere, Dr. J. C. 
Tache, and other scholars. M. N. E. Dionne, now 
librarian of the Parliamentary Library in the 
Province of Quebec, did some copying for Park- 
man in 1871, as he himself tells, in English so 
much better than much of our American-French, 
that I venture to quote it : " Being poor, I was 
glad to gain some dollars, but I was chiefly proud 
to accompany this well-known Bostonian through 
his peregrinations from the Seminary to the epis- 
copal palace, from the registrar office to the Ter- 
rier's office, compulsing together every document 
which he intended to use." Parkman was well 
pleased with the copies ; and M. Dionne, himself 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 267 

a historian, is able to add, " So that I must say, 
and everybody can say so, that if I am something 
to-day, I owe this to Mr. Parkman." 

Among the Catholic clergy he had many 
friendly acquaintances. M. Audet, chaplain of 
the Couvent de Jesus et Marie de Sillery, intro- 
duced him to a priest at Cape Breton in these 
terms, u This gentleman, in spite of the difference 
of faith, has shown in his writings great justice 
in his estimate of the deeds of Catholics in Can- 
ada ; " and to another thus, " This gentleman, 
although he does not share our faith, has in all 
his writings taken pains to give the most just 
and favorable testimony to the work of Catholi- 
cism in Canada." 

Parkman's chief correspondence and most fa- 
miliar intercourse were with M. l'Abbe H. R. 
Casgrain, the distinguished historian of Canada. 
The two were good friends for some twenty-eight 
years; M. l'Abbe, then a professor in the univer- 
sity, was the chief combatant on Parkman's side 
in the battle royal over the Laval degree ; the 
friendship had begun by an interchange of let- 
ters in 1866, for the Muse of History, taking 
each by the hand, had brought them together. 
Parkman wished to subscribe to a Canadian re- 
view, "Le Foyer Canadien." Abbe Casgrain, 
secretary to the board of publication, hearing of 
this wish, presented him with all the back num- 



268 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

bers, for, as the French know better than the 
rest of us, " little gifts make great friendships." 
The Abbe was a descendant of M. Baby, " a 
prominent habitant," who lived across the river 
from Detroit at the time of Pontiac's attack, and 
by his good offices rendered the hard-pressed gar- 
rison great service ; 2 this ancestry made a natu- 
ral tie between the two historians. They had 
another bond, for the Abbe was afflicted with 
a partial blindness that prevented him from 
reading or writing. Between them there was 
an interchange of maps and documents and of 
photographs. The little incidents of history, the 
tassels and ornaments of narrative, made their 
intercourse very agreeable. For example, Abbe 
Casgrain brought together careful documentary 
evidence that Champlain's tomb had been erected 
on the spot now occupied by the post-office, near 
the Chateau Frontenac, — a feat that aroused 
jealousy and disbelief in other antiquarians. On 
this occasion Parkman wrote, "A friend in Mon- 
treal sent me a newspaper with a notice of your 
great discovery. I have long hoped that some- 
thing might be brought to light on this point, 
and wait with interest to hear more." Then fol- 
lows another letter, disputing the Abbe's opinion 
that Brebeuf — the noble Jesuit — should not 
have an accent on the first syllable of his name, 
1 Pontiac, vol. i. p. 248. 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 269 

ending, " I hope soon to hear that Champlain's 
bones are found." 

Then Parknian sends a copy of "The Jesuits 
in North America." 

Boston, Jan. 30, 1868. 

If you are not in Quebec, it will no doubt await 
your return. Remembering that I am a heretic, 
you will expect a good deal with which you will 
be very far from agreeing. The truth is, I am a 
little surprised that neither Catholics nor Pro- 
testants have been very severe in their strictures 
on the book. I fully expected to be attacked by 
both — that is by the Calvinistic portion of Pro- 
testants. I believe both sides saw that I meant 
to give a candid view of my subject in the best 
light in which I could see it. 

SAME TO SAME. 

Boston, Feb. 13, 1868. 
My dear Abbe, — Many thanks for your 
most kind and welcome letter. I am truly glad 
that, as a man of letters and as a Catholic priest, 
you can find so much to approve in my book, 
and I set an especial value on your commenda- 
tion. We are, as you say, at opposite poles of 
faith — but my faith, such as it is, is strong and 
earnest, and I have the deepest respect for the 
heroic self-devotion, the true charity, of the early 
Jesuits of Canada. . . . 

Believe me ever, with great esteem, 
Your friend and servant, 

F. Parkman. 



270 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

SAME TO SAME. 
f)0 Chestnut St., Boston, 10 April, '71. 

My dear Abbe, — Many thanks for your 
most friendly and obliging letter, and for the 
books which accompanied it. I regret to hear that 
your eyes still give you so much trouble ; a mat- 
ter in which I can wholly sympathize with you, 
my own having been useless for ten years or 
more, and even now permitting me to write or 
read only for a few minutes at one time. 

Soon after this the Abbe went to Boston and 
paid Parkman a visit at his country home by 
Jamaica Pond. The Abbe* says, " Les politesses 
exquises dont je fus l'objet de sa part et de celle 
de sa famille out laisse* en moi des souvenirs qui 
ne sont pas effaces ; " and Parkman wrote : " I 
recall your visit with the greatest pleasure, and 
congratulate myself that after so long an inter- 
val I have at last the good fortune to know you 
personally." The visit was short, but Parkman 
took the Abbe to see Harvard College, Mr. 
Agassiz, and Mr. Longfellow, whose long white 
beard, falling over his chest, recalled to the Abbe* 
the ancient seers and poets, " Ossian, Baruch, or 
Camoens." 

One consequence of this visit was the little 
book, " Francis Parkman, par l'Abbe* H. R. 
Casgrain," published in 1872, which is full of 
admiration, of compliments, and yet speaks out 
frankly the author's divergent views. 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 271 

We have enlarged as far as possible the place 
of praise, in order to accord to Truth all its rights, 
to criticism elbow-room. Let us say, without 
beating about the bush, . . . Mr. Parkman's 
work is the negation of all religious belief. The 
author rejects the Protestant theory as well as 
Catholic dogma ; he is an out-and-out rationalist. 
We perceive an upright soul, born for the truth, 
but lost without a compass on a boundless sea. 
Hence these aspirations towards the true, these 
flashes of acknowledgment, these words of hom- 
age to the truth, followed, alas, by strange fall- 
ings off, by fits of fanaticism that are astound- 
ing. 

The Abbe* sent Parkman the proofs of this 
little book before publication. 

PARKMAN TO CASGRAIN. 

Boston, Jan. 26, 1872. 

My dear Friend, — The proofs came yester- 
day. I think you know me too well to doubt that 
I accept your criticism as frankly as it is given, 
and that I always listen with interest and satis- 
faction to the comments of so kind and generous 
an opponent. I only wonder that, in the oppo- 
sition of our views on many points of profound 
importance, you can find so much to commend. 
When you credit me with loyalty and honor, you 
give me the praise that I value most of all. 

In all that you say of my books and of myself 
I recognize a warmth of personal regard which 
would lead me to distrust your praises but for 
the manifest candor and sincerity which pervade 



272 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

your praise and blame alike. I need not say that 
I am extremely gratified by the one ; and as for 
the other, I gladly accept it. I know what your 
views are. You have spoken them openly, but 
very kindly. As a Catholic you could not have 
said less, and you might have said more. 

I wish you were not in error when you say 
that I am about finishing my present task. A 
very long road is still before me. The subject 
is complicated and difficult, and the time I can 
give to it each day is short, both from other 
deviations and the state of my health, which often 
makes study out of the question. According to 
the "medical faculty," as the newspapers say, 
the trouble comes from an abnormal state or 
partial paralysis of certain arteries of the brain. 
Whatever it is, it is a nuisance of the first order, 
and a school of patience by which Job himself 
might have profited. However, Providence per- 
mitting, I will spite the devil yet. 

Very sincerely and cordially yours, 

F. Parkman. 

SAME TO SAME. 

Boston, 17 Nov., '72. 

I have just returned [from a trip to France]. 
I have brought home a large collection of doc- 
uments. More are to follow, to the amount of 
about 2500 folio pages. So you see, I did not 
lose my time. 

Let me correct what seems a mistaken im- 
pression. In your critique of Chauveau you 
speak of dures verites which you uttered in re- 
gard to my books, and for which I thanked you 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 273 

and still thank you. But this is because I like 
frank and outspoken criticism, when kindly ut- 
tered, not because I recognize as verites the 
strictures passed upon me. While esteeming my 
critic, I still believe myself in the right. 

[May 23, 1873.] 
Of one thing I beg you to be entirely assured, 
and that is that your article in the " Revue " 
[criticising Parkman] has not in the slightest 
degree affected the cordial regard which I enter- 
tain for you. I knew that you wrote it with 
pain and regret, in obedience to a sense of duty ; 
and besides, I believe that when I feel confident 
in my position I am not very sensitive to criti- 
cism. 

After this, Parkman made a return visit to 
the Abbe, at the Maison d'Airvault, the latter's 
family place at Riviere Ouelle, a village on the 
south bank of the St. Lawrence, opposite the 
mouth of the Murray River. Here Parkman not 
merely had the pleasure of the society of his 
host and his host's family, but became familiar 
with a little village not so very different from 
what it had been when the fleur-de-lis floated 
over the citadel of Quebec. Correspondence was 
taken up again as before. M. l'Abbe wrote a 
review of the " Old Regime," in which he found 
sundry expressions of opinion that did not co- 
incide with his own. 



274 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

PARKMAN TO CASGRAIN. 

Jamaica Plain, 9 May, 1875. 
Mon CHER Ami, — I have read your article 
on the Old Regime with attention and inter- 
est. It is very much what I had expected, know- 
ing your views and the ardor with which you 
embrace them, as well as the warmth and kind- 
liness of your feelings. I could take issue 
squarely on the principal points you make, but 
it would make this letter too long, and I do not 
care to enter into discussion with a personal 
friend on matters which he has so much at heart. 
Moreover, I wish to preserve an entirely judicial, 
and not controversial frame of mind on all that 
relates to Canadian matters. Let me set you 
right, however, on one or two points personal to 
myself. My acquaintance here would smile to 
hear me declared an advocate of democracy and 
a lover of the puritans. I have always declared 
openly my detestation of the unchecked rule of 
the masses, that is to say, of universal suffrage, 
and the corruption which is sure to follow in 
every large and heterogeneous community. I 
have also always declared a very cordial dislike 
of puritanism. I recognize some most respecta- 
ble and valuable qualities in the settlers of New 
England, but do not think them or their system 
to be praised without great qualifications, and I 
would not spare criticism, if I had to write about 
them. Nor am I at all an enthusiast for the nine- 
teenth century, many of the tendencies of which 
I deplore, while admiring much that it has ac- 
complished. It is too democratic, and too much 
given to the pursuit of material interests at the 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 275 

expense of intellectual and moral greatness, 
which I hold to be the true end, — to which 
material progress should be but a means. 

My political faith lies between two vicious ex- 
tremes, democracy and absolute authority, each 
of which I detest the more because it tends to 
react into the other. I do not object to a good 
constitutional monarchy, but prefer a conserva- 
tive republic, where intelligence and character, 
and not numbers, hold the reins of power. 

I could also point out a good many other mis- 
takes in your article. You say that I see Cana- 
dian defects through a microscope, and merits 
through a diminishing glass. The truth is, I have 
suppressed a considerable number of statements 
and observations because I thought that while 
they would give pain, they were not absolutely 
necessary to the illustration of the subject ; but 
I have invariably given every favorable testimony 
I could find in any authentic quarter. . . . 
Very cordially yours, 

F. Parkman. 

SAME TO SAME. 

Nov. 2, 1878. 
Did you get an attack on the sovereign Demos, 
which I sent you ? It has drawn on me a great 
deal of barking and growling, and caused me to 
be branded as " audacious," a " foe to popular 
government " etc., — so you see I am shot at 
from both sides of the line. The article in ques- 
tion, however, has been very widely read, and 
has received a great deal of approval as well as 
denunciation. 



276 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

The following extract relates to the degree 
which his friends sought to obtain for him from 
Laval University. 

Dec. 10, 1878. 

This outbreak is a very curious one. So far 
as I myself am concerned, I find it rather amus- 
ing, and am not annoyed by it in the least. But 
I regret it extremely on account of the trouble 
it has given you and Mr. Le Moine ; and also on 
account of the embarrassing position in which I 
fear that it places the University and the excel- 
lent ecclesiastics by whom it is directed. It was 
to me extremely gratifying that men like these, 
while differing profoundly from me and disap- 
proving much that I have written, should recog- 
nize the sincerity of my work by expressing their 
intention to honor me with a degree of Docteur 
es Lettres. It was this generous recognition 
which gave me particular pleasure ; and greatly 
as I should feel honored by a degree from Laval 
University, I prize still more the proofs of esteem 
which its directors have already given me. I 
trust that they will not feel themselves com- 
mitted to any course which circumstances may 
have rendered inexpedient, and that they will be 
guided simply by the interests of the University. 

Thus the correspondence went along, touch- 
ing on Parkman's gleanings in the archives of 
Paris, on the Abbe's antiquarian discoveries, on 
history, on friends, on other matters unimportant, 
except in the respect most important of all, evi- 
dence of good hearts and good friendship. Most 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 277 

of the Abbess letters unfortunately have been 
lost or destroyed; Parkman's continue till the 
year before his death ; but the last of his that 
shall be quoted concerns his health, in answer to 
inquiries of affectionate interest. 

Jamaica Plain, 12 May, 1889. 
Mon cher Abbe, — For the past five years I 
have done very little historical work, not so 
much from laziness as from the effects of insom- 
nia. Two or three hours of sleep in the 24 — 
which have been until lately my average allow- 
ance for long periods together — are not enough 
to wind up the human machine, especially when 
exercise is abridged by hereditary gout mixed 
with rheumatism, produced, according to the 
doctors, by numerous drenchings in the forests 
of Maine when I was a collegian (e. g. on one 
occasion, rain without shelter for three days and 
nights, just after being wrecked in a rapid of 
the River Margalloway). Perhaps, however, the 
rheumatism is a stroke of retributive justice for 
writing " Montcalm and Wolfe." Though I have 
slept better in the past year, it is still an open 
question whether I shall ever manage to supply 
the missing link between that objectionable work 
and its predecessor " Count Frontenac." . . . 
Que Dieu vous aide — 

Tout-a-vous, 

We cannot suppose that two historians of di- 
vergent views corresponded on such hotspur top- 
ics as the peasants of Acadia, the rival merits of 



278 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Montcalm and Le*vis, or the character of Vau- 
dreuil, not to mention nationality and religion, 
without one or the other catching fire and flam- 
ing up till the " rash bavin " cause was burned 
out, and old friendship returned to its old ways. 
But certainly there was no trace of jangling 
towards the end ; the melody of friendship was 
altogether pleasant. 

casgrain to parkman [translated], 

Quebec, May 23d, 1892. 

My dear Historian, — I make haste to thank 
you for the present of your two handsome vol- 
umes, " A Half Century of Conflict," which I 
have just received. Let me cordially congratu- 
late you upon having set the crown on the great 
work to which you have consecrated all your life. 
No one values it more than I do. I am now 
going to forsake all other reading, in order to 
plunge headlong into your two volumes. For me 
they have a double attraction : because of the 
conscientious researches of which they are the 
fruit, and because they are written by a person 
who has always been the object of my admira- 
tion, and for whom I feel an attachment that I 
cannot well express. . . . Je fais des vceux pour 
que votre chere sante s'ameliore, et je vous prie 
de croire a une estime qui n'a d'egale que mon 
attachement. H. R. Casgrain. 

So they parted with French politeness on their 
lips and kind feelings in their hearts. " Croyez 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 279 

toujours a ma sincere amitie : la votre m'honore 
infiniment, Casgrain." " Que Dieu vous aide, 
tout-a-vous, Parkman." 

I must not close this correspondence without 
a passing allusion — my ignorance will not suffer 
me to do more — to two criticisms which the 
Abbe Casgrain has made upon Parkman's his- 
tory. The first is that Parkman was unjust in 
his account of the poor peasants banished from 
Acadia by the English in 1755. x Parkman did 
make a mistake in his reliance upon certain doc- 
uments officially published : " Selections from the 
Public Documents of the Province of Nova Sco- 
tia ; " these were in fact badly garbled, as the 
Abbe proved by his diligent researches and dis- 
coveries in the British Museum and the Record 
Office in London. The Abbe, relying on this 
fresh evidence, spoke very warmly in favor of 
the Acadians in his book "Un pelerinage au pays 
d'Evangeline " (1886) ; but other scholars say 
that the case against the Acadian peasants is 
not upset by the new documents. 

The second criticism is that Parkman made 
Montcalm the French hero in the final drama at 
Quebec, whereas this honor should have been 
bestowed upon Levis. Several years after Park- 
man's book was published, Count Raimond de 
Nicolay, great-grandson of Chevalier Levis, 
1 Montcalm and Wolfe, chap. viii. 



280 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

through the good offices of Abbe Casgrain, gave 
permission to the Province of Quebec to publish 
the journals and letters of his great-grandfather. 
To these valuable papers Parkman had not ac- 
cess. They were published between 1889 and 
1895 under the superintendence of the Abbe, 
and show that Levis was a very noble, spirited, 
and capable man, and, if they do not oust Mont- 
calm from his pedestal, prove that the French 
had a second hero as well. 

During all the years from the beginning of 
preparation until the " Half Century of Con- 
flict" was sent to the printer, Parkman made 
from time to time frequent visits to Canada. 
As Sir James M. Le Moine says, he used to 
call Quebec his sunny, health-restoring, holiday 
home. No wonder the St. Lawrence was a river 
after his own heart, with its long ancestry of 
lakes, its great seaward flow, its shifting banks, 
high and low, soft and rugged, its little lines 
of white villages, and the romantic citadel of 
Quebec, at whose feet it flows with all the chiv- 
alry proper to the prince of rivers. He would 
go about as always, with a little notebook in 
pocket, jotting down, not with the prodigality 
of old, but with a frugal pencil, notes and memo- 
randa, so brief that one little book served for 
years. But the old love of detail is there. 

In Canada, too, after forty lean years of absti- 



CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 281 

nence, he camped out for the last time; on the 
banks of the Batiscan River, he spent a month 
with Mr. Farnham, his biographer. 

TO MISS PARKMAN. 

Batiscan River, 7 June, [1886]. 
My dear L., — I am well. Fishing good. 
Flies bad. Farnham very pleasant. Camp fin- 
ished and comfortable. Excellent fare. Family 
consists of selves and our puppy. ... F. an ex- 
cellent cook. 

F. P. 

Parkman could not do much, hobbled by his 
lame knee, but he was always interested, patient, 
and cheerful. He enjoyed the " feel " of a rifle 
once more, and a shot at a handy mark ; he tried 
fishing with a fly, — the worm of his early days 
having crawled under the protection of fashion- 
able contempt. He liked to get into his little 
canoe, in which he could mock his lame leg, 
and paddle down the river, gazing at the green 
banks, the high bluffs, the close thickets, — all 
as it were seen in a magic mirror, for he could 
not enter. This was his last visit to the land he 
had done so much to honor. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

LATER LIFE 

There still remains the duty to chronicle the 
simple happenings in the life of the scholar in- 
valid, during the thirty years from the war until 
his death ; they are uneventful, much too undra- 
matic for a reader, but such as they were they 
made up his life. Random extracts from his sis- 
ter's diary show the ups and downs over which 
he passed : — 

1862, Jan. 29. F. went to the Baldwins' last 
ev'g to a small supper given to Mr. W. Hunt, 
and to-night was able to go to the Club for a 
short time. 

June 11. F. has seemed in very good spirits for 
a day or two. 

Sept. 9. F. is suffering from the most severe 
attack in his eyes he has had for years. He 
cannot attend to his gardening at all. Mo- 
ther feels very anxious. 

10th. F., if anything, worse. He seems in very 
low spirits. 

15th. F. seems better. 

1863, Jan. 24. F. is highly entertained by " Pick- 
wick," as much as if he had never read it be- 
fore. 



LATER LIFE 283 

Feb. 11. F. is beginning to work upon his French 

History, though, as he says, at a snail's pace. 

His eyes are very troublesome now. 
June 27. Rose Show. Grace [his daughter] and 

I drove in with F. and arranged the flowers. 

1st prize, Moss Roses ; 2d, June Roses ; 3d, 

Display. 
Sept. 20. F. has not slept for some nights, and 

his head is in a bad state. 
Oct. 1. F. still has very poor nights and seems 

miserably. 
2d. F. had very little sleep ; head very bad. 

1864, June 25. This is the day of the Rose 
Show. Grace and I went in to help Frank. 
We worked steadily for two hours, and barely 
had time to prepare the great quantity of roses. 
F. took four 1st prizes and a large " gratuity." 

1865, June 6th. F. went to Washington this 
morning. 

12th. Frank writes from Washington. He has 
seen the camps and means to go to Rich- 
mond. 

20th. Letter from F. at Richmond. He is de- 
tained there to collect documents for the Bos- 
ton Athenaeum. 

July 18th. Frank and I have been to a reception 
at the Lymans' to meet Gen. Meade and Staff. 

Nov. 7. Frank came down to breakfast very 
lame ; thinks the old trouble is all coming 
back. 

22d. The anxiety about Frank's knee is passing 
away. 

1866, Aug. 10th. F. started for Quebec. 
29. F. took the usual prizes at the Hort. 



284 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Nov. 16th. F. came in [town] to-day to live. 

1867, April 20th. F. came in to spend Sunday. 
Grace came to tea. Enthusiasm over cats. 

July 10. Frank is going to the Mississippi River ; 
he is now writing history connected with its dis- 
covery, and goes on that account. What a good 
summer he has had so far ; his book ["Jesuits"] 
out this spring and well received, and his 
flowers so successful, and he seems so well. 

Aug. 15. Frank arrived none the worse for the 
5 weeks journey, though he has used head and 
eyes much. He has brought many photo's of 
Sioux Indians and of Mississippi scenery. [He 
saw Henry Chatillon at St. Louis.] 

1868, June 30. Drove in with F. to the Rose 
Show. F. took 1st prizes. 

July 15. F. goes to Cambridge in all the heat. 
He is chosen overseer of the college. 

Aug. 1st. F. has gone to Rye to spend Sunday 
with the children. 

10th. F. left this ev'g to spend a fortnight in 
Canada. 

Sept. 25. Mother is 75 to-day. F. brought in 
white roses. 

Oct. 29. Frank's head is in a bad state, the first 
time for a long time. 

Nov. 1. F.'s head is very bad, worse than for 
some time ; he says, years. 

Nov. 27. Frank has determined to go to Paris 
for the winter. His head seems a little better, 
but he cannot do much with it, and he would 
rather be idle there than here. He seems dis- 
posed to go, and in good spirits, so we are very 
glad to have him, but it leaves a great gap. 



LATER LIFE 285 

PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER. 

21 Boulevard St. Michel, 
Paris, 15 Jan., 1869. 

My dear Lizzie, — I have rec'd your letter 
of 8 Dec, but not till a month after its date. . . . 
There is a little girl in the house, daughter of 
the concierge, who collects post-stamps, and would 
be delighted with five or six American and Ca- 
nadian stamps. Will you inclose them in your 
next if convenient. I mean to leave here for 
England early in March, and thence home after 
a few days in London. . . . 

[Jan. 18.] 

... I have just rec'd all your letters. I am 
grieved more than I can tell you about mother's 
accident. Keep me well informed about it. . . . 
Tell Grace that there are girls here who ride on 
velocipedes with two wheels in the streets, but 
that their conduct is not at all approved. . . . 

[28 Jan., '69.] 
If I do not hear good news soon I shall set out 
for home, but I trust that mother is getting bet- 
ter. Remember me most affectionately to her 
and tell her that I think of her continually. I 
am doing very well indeed, and am far better in 
health than when I left Boston. ... I have a 
good many acquaintances, some of them very 
pleasant ones, though I refuse dinners, etc. 

[Feb. 1, '69.] 
I have just rec'd yours of Jan. 16 with news 
that mother is better, which is an immense re- 
lief. I am all right bating a cold in the head. 



286 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

To-morrow I am going to St. Cloud to breakfast 
with Count Circourt, a friend of the Ticknors. I 
see Margry often. He was here the other night, 
and staid till twelve. ... I made a journey of 2 
miles and more under Paris, through the sewers, 
partly in a boat, and partly in a sort of rail-car. 
. . . Give my best love to mother and the chil- 
dren, not forgetting Jack. 

[Feb. 24, '69.] 
Have been troubled with want of sleep for five 
or six nights, but otherwise all right. If I ac- 
cepted invitations, which I do not, I should have 
the run of the Faubourg St. Germain. I have 
just declined an invitation from the Prince de 
Broglie to dine. Yesterday I saw the Marquis de 
Montcalm, great-grandson of Wolfe's antagonist, 
who was very civil. The post-stamps were very 
gratefully received. Don't let the doctor [Dr. 
Bigelow] think that I am doing anything but 
amuse myself, for I am not. I meet a few people 
incidentally, but am very stiff in declining over- 
tures. The Marquis placed his family papers at 
my disposal. I have not read one of them, but 
employed a man to copy them, who is now at 
work. 

miss parkman's diary. 

1869. March 27. F. arrived this ev'g. He seems 
in very good spirits and health. 

April 12. Frank's head is almost as bad as be- 
fore he went away. 

1870. Feb. 17. F. has been very sleepless of 
late. He had his club last night at the Union 
Club rooms (mother being ill). 



LATER LIFE 287 

March 24. F. is having sleepless nights, and suf- 
fering very much. 

Sept. 16. F.'s birthday. He got no sleep last 
night, and I never saw him more affected by 
it in health or spirits. It is a year since he 
has been sleepless, more or less. 

23d. F. did not sleep at all last night. It is 
wonderful that he can do anything by day, 
and he does not do much. 

24th. F. slept between 5 and 6 hours. It is such 
a relief. Yesterday it was mournful enough 
at breakfast, though he plays with the cats 
and the children and says nothing. 

25th. Mother is 76 to-day. As I came down to 
breakfast I saw F. coming in with a bunch of 
roses already tied, and another of ribbons and 
daisies. He looked so well I knew he had 
slept, and found he had had a very good night. 
That alone made mother happy. 

1871. March 12. Mother feels very happy that 
F. has just been chosen professor of Horticul- 
ture in the new Bussey Institute of H. C. 
[Harvard College]. Frank himself likes the 
appointment, as he thinks he can do the work 
without giving more time than he can give, 
and the fact that he can take such a responsi- 
bility is a delight as a proof of how much better 
he is. [He resigned as overseer of the college 
on the ground of inconsistency between the 
two positions.] 

April 2d. Flora's first kittens appeared, but had 
a brief existence. F.'s interest was deep, and 
his disappointment also. 

June 8th. Mother moved out of town with great 



288 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

difficulty (on account of her hip), but at last 
was safe in her room, rhododendrons and roses 
of Frank's gathering all about her. 

That summer their mother died, while Park- 
man was in Canada. It was a terrible blow to 
him, — "poor fellow, how his face looked," — 
and the brother and sister were left alone to go 
through life together, for their sister Caroline 
had married and their sister Mary had died sev- 
eral years before, and their brother Jack — John 
Eliot, once Elly — died soon afterwards. 

In 1872 they went to Paris, as Parkman wished 
to relieve his insatiable appetite for more docu- 
ments. Here they saw a good deal of Margry, a 
person who plays a part in the story of Parkman's 
difficulties in laying his hands on documents, 
even on those of which he had definite informa- 
tion. Parkman had known this gentleman for 
several years, not without forming some opinion 
of him, as we see from certain phrases in the let- 
ters of 1868 to Abbe Casgrain : — 

As for Margry, I am fully of your mind con- 
cerning him. I am in the midst of La Salle's 
discoveries. ... I have a great deal that is new 
relating to his enterprises ; and but for M. Mar- 
gry, should have still more. . . . Margry is very 
intractable, and I can get nothing from him. 

M. Pierre Athanase Margry, chef adjoint 
Archiviste au Ministere de la Marine (in later 



LATER LIFE 289 

years en retraite) and Chevalier de la Legion 
d'Honneur, had made an immense collection of 
documents about La Salle, which he had ferreted 
out of the Public Archives under his charge with 
great zeal and industry ; these he wished to pub- 
lish himself, but he had not money enough, and 
was not willing that another should reap the har- 
vest of his sowing, so he denied Parkman access 
to them. As these documents were of great in- 
terest in the history of the United States, an 
attempt had been made a year or two before to 
induce Congress to make an appropriation for the 
cost of publication, but in vain. In this collection 
were La Salle's own letters, and these Parkman 
was most eager to see. This conduct of Margry's 
has been harshly blamed. Mr. Justin Winsor 
says : " The keeper of an important department 
of the French Archives had been so unfaithful to 
his trust as to reserve for his own private use some 
of its documentary proofs." Be the blame just 
or no, — a lawyer might find something to say in 
behalf of a right of lien for labor spent in search 
and discovery, — Parkman freely forgave him. 
Margry was a man with whom it would have 
been hard to remain angry, even for a much less 
generous person than Parkman ; he was a voluble 
Gallic, kindly, smiling, enthusiastic little person, 
lively, alert, " sensitive and distrustful," wearing 
his mustachios and goatee after the fashion of 



290 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

the Second Empire. An amiable, infantile look 
of quizzical cunning on his face, with his silk 
hat, kid gloves, and loose pantaloons, effectually 
disqualified him as an object of indignation. He 
was very friendly, liked to come and sit and chat, 
and would stay till cockcrow if permitted ; he was 
full of friendly usages, and on this visit cele- 
brated Parkman's birthday with a poem : — 

16. 7 bre - 1823-1872. 

A Francis Parkman, Auteur des Franqais en 
Amerique. 

Dans le monde, ou vous etes n£ 
Vos Merits disent notre gloire ; 
Nul n'a, comme vous, honore 
Les beaux actes de notre histoire. 

Cependant presque inapercu 
Vous allez parcourant la France, 
Et e'est par hasard que j'ai su 
La date de votre naissance. 

Aussi je veux pour mon pays 

Feter ce jour, selon l'usage, 

Par la meme pense'e unis 

II m'est cher de vous rendre hommage. 

The poem has ten stanzas, is annotated, and 
altogether breathes patriotism, hatred of Bis- 
marck, and love of Parkman. The friendship 
thus fostered led to a plan, — that Parkman 
should try to persuade some American bookseller 
to publish the collection, for Margry, in spite of 
poetry, firmly declined to sell the documents or 



LATER LIFE 291 

the use of them ;" but this plan came to nought, 
as the great fire in Boston made general econ- 
omy necessary. Thereupon Parkman pricked on 
professors, and the professors stuck spurs into 
historical societies — fire, fire, burn stick ; stick, 
stick, beat pig, — and they, in turn, petitioned 
Congress to make the necessary appropriation 
of 110,000. Senator Hoar and General Garfield 
took the matter up ; the act was passed, and the 
4 Decouvertes et Etablissements des Francais, 
dans l'Ouest et dans le Sud de l'Ame*rique Sep- 
tentrionale (1614-1754), Memoires et Docu- 
ments originaux," were published in Paris, and 
did good service for a later edition of " La Salle 
and the Discovery of the Great West." 

There were other friends in Paris, the Marquis 
de Montcalm, a nobleman completely indifferent 
to that ceremonious deportment which we like 
to think accompanies a coronet, but a kindly 
little man, always giving full performance in 
deeds to the pleasant " expression de ma parfaite 
amitie* et de mes sentiments les plus distingue"s ; " 
there was M. le Comte de Circourt, and other 
gentlemen acquainted with Canadian history, 
either through respect for their fighting ances- 
tors, or, by a prodigious cosmopolitan effort, in- 
teresting themselves in things outside of Paris. 

Parkman enjoyed the beautiful city, he was 
diverted by the happy bearing and gay polite- 



292 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

ness of the people, and he liked to stroll, when 
he could, along the quais^ and examine the rows 
of books, always seasonable bait for the foreign 
traveler, or see what could be seen from tops of 
omnibuses. 

There was but one intrusion of unpleasant- 
ness into his French relations : a lady, Mme. la 
Comtesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, translated into 
French " The Pioneers," and " The Jesuits," 
but in such a garbled and wanton manner, as to 
suppress facts and opinions which in her judgment 
were not so complimentary to the church as the 
needs of pious edification required. Mr. Park- 
man was nettled, and expressed his opinion, but 
with much less asperity than the lady deserved, 

In contradistinction to this disagreeable im- 
propriety, M. Geffroy delivered an intelligent 
speech before the Department of Moral and Po- 
litical Sciences of the French Institute, on the 
occasion of presenting a copy of Parkman's 
works, and expressed appreciation of the even- 
handed justice which Parkman had dealt to so 
partisan a subject. 

After this visit to Paris in 1872, brother and 
sister returned to their old way of life, dividing 
the year between Jamaica Plain and 50 Chestnut 
Street. He had given up his professorship at 
the Bussey Institute, after one year of service, 
but he always maintained a deep affection for 



LATER LIFE 293 

the college, and in 1875 was elected one of the 
Fellows of the Corporation. He served for thir- 
teen years, and was regular and punctual in his 
attendance; sometimes the matters of business 
were too severe in their claims on his atten- 
tion, and he would get up and walk about, or go 
out into the fresh air, and then come back to 
the business. 

In 1880 he made another trip to England and 
France. This time the archives and the books 
on the banks of the Seine were not his only mo- 
tives for going ; his younger daughter had married 
Mr. John Templeman Coolidge, and was living 
in Paris with her husband. This journey was 
memorable for the discovery of the letters of 
Montcalm to his lieutenant Bourlamaque; these 
letters covered all the time from Montcalm's 
arrival in Canada to within a few days before 
his death, and had long been hidden treasure, 
suspected, sought, but undiscovered. For fifteen 
years Parkman had been on the scent, and now 
that he was approaching the time to publish 
"Montcalm and Wolfe," he was doubly eager. 
The letters had been traced to England; there 
the scent failed. At last they were found to be 
a part of a precious collection belonging to Sir 
Thomas Phillips, a great buyer of manuscripts in 
his day, and from him they had descended to the 
Rev. John E. A. Fen wick, and were hid in his 



294 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

library at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham. Let- 
ters passed rapidly concerning the treasure trove, 
and it was agreed that Mr. Fenwick's son Fitz 
Roy, who was "fond of deciphering," should copy 
the MSS. wanted. The Eev. Mr. Fenwick was 
obliged to move about, and his travels to Redels- 
ton Hall, Derby, and the Crescent Hotel, Bux- 
ton, caused several little delays. Then the young 
gentleman had to hurry back to Oxford for a 
cram, as he was to be examined for his final 
" school," and a new copyist had to be found. A 
lady of Atherfield House, Miles Road, Clifton, 
could not serve. She, however, suggested two 
ladies of the Brooklands, Gloster Road, but 
that house was two miles and a half from Chel- 
tenham ; finally Mr. Fenwick, a very kind and 
hospitable man, procured the services of a French 
lady, Miss Marie Perret, who copied the rest of 
the documents, " Lettres de Yaudreuil, Lettres 
de Levis, Lettres Variarum," at the cost of 3d. 
for 72 words, as a neat little receipt in her hand- 
writing records. These letters were especially 
valuable, because they were very intimate, full of 
frank remarks on Vaudreuil, Bigot, and others, 
with frequent "brulez cette lettre," — orders, 
like many others given by poor Montcalm, diso- 
beyed. 

The expenses for copying were often very 
heavy ; the little notebooks record : — 



LATER LIFE 295 

Cost of copying, etc. 
Montcalm papers, leave to copy . . £20 
Facsimile to map of Ticonderoga . . 15s. 

Book, Conduct of Shirley 2 

T. Fitzroy Fenwick, copying .... 13 2 6 
J. E. A. Fenwick, copying (for Miss 

Perret) 12 

Montcalm picture, 60 francs. 

Wolfe " 10s. 

Imbry, copying 15 3 

Mrs. Bullen, copying 15 1 

These expenses obliged Parkinan to practice 
economy, not on a petty scale, but after the man- 
ner of r, prudent, unostentatious gentleman. 

Perhaps it was on this visit that one day he 
was sitting upon a bench in St. James's Park, 
somewhat forlorn, missing unconsciously the care 
he always got at 50 Chestnut Street, when up 
came friendly aid in the person of Mr. Henry 
James, who put him down at the Athenaeum 
Club, and gave him a pleasant sense of sym- 
pathy, admiration, and fellowship, in the felici- 
tous, evasive way that Parkman liked so much. 
Mr. James and the Athenaeum took off what for 
Parkman was a rather cold, raw edge in London 
atmosphere. 

There was another visit to Paris the next 
year; and at divers times there were journeys to 
Florida, to Acadia, to Canada, which interrupted 
for a few weeks at a stretch the peaceful life at 



296 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Jamaica Pond. His health continued as before, 
but the lack of sleep grew worse. 

PARKMAN TO DR. WEIR MITCHELL. 

Jamaica Plain, 5 Nov., 1885. 

My dear Dr. Mitchell, — I regret to bother 
you again with my troubles, but as you have done 
more for me than anybody else, I am tempted to 
do so. 

For about two years I have observed an in- 
creasing tendency to insomnia. This autumn, 
within about two months, it has become ex- 
tremely troublesome. Sometimes I do not sleep 
at all. Often I sleep only from one to three 
hours. The week before last, the average for 
seven days was about two hours. Last night I 
heard every clock but those of eleven and twelve. 
The preceding night, however, I slept — at in- 
tervals and not continuously — to the amount 
of more than five hours, which was rather rare 
good luck. 

Bromide, etc., produce no effect. . . . Bating 
sleeplessness and its effects, I have been better 
than before, with the exception of palpitation of 
the heart, which is sometimes very troublesome. 
Throbbing in the ear at night is also annoying 
at times. The old distress in the head continues, 
but has been less distressing within the last few 
years than before I took your advice. Within the 
last year I have done a very moderate amount 
of work, and recently none at all. . . . Muscu- 
lar strength is not exhausted, but nerves are set 
on edge, and the condition of the head entirely 
precludes brain-work. I have occasionally had 



LATER LIFE 297 

attacks as severe, or more so, — once four suc- 
cessive nights absolutely without sleep, — but this 
is more persistent than any before, and is aggra- 
vated by the palpitation of the heart, which 
I have reason to believe is not from organic 
causes. Yours very truly, 

F. Pakkman. 

The skillful physician could do little or no- 
thing. I must not let myself be betrayed into 
too much of malady and medicine. Parkman's 
body might be hampered and harassed ; there 
was no sickness in his spirit. No one who ad- 
mitted to himself that he was an invalid could 
have written so much like a man, belted and 
booted, with hand on saddle-bow, as he does in 
all his histories. 

Neither did he admit that he was cut off from 
indoor pleasures. He always enjoyed the meet- 
ings of the " Saturday Club," a company of Bos- 
ton gentlemen, some of great note, — the most 
famous club of its kind in America. The club 
used to meet at the end of the month to dine to- 
gether, and pronounce salvation or condemnation, 
it was said, upon the intellectual work of Boston. 
Parkman was always essentially a sociable per- 
son ; a man with opinions interesting to hear ; a 
taker of sides ; a man full of likes and dislikes ; 
a lover of old ways, with delightful variety of 
expression between quiet, refined acquiescence 



298 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

and heady opposition ; a charming companion, 
a distinguished presence. John Fiske, who was 
a member of the club, and a pretty constant 
attendant, never knew that he was an invalid ; 
always found him alert, extremely gentle ; and 
when he was absent, supposed that a prudence 
for digestion or early hours kept him away. " He 
never made the slightest allusion to his ill health ; 
he would probably have deemed it inconsistent 
with good breeding to intrude upon his friends 
with such topics, and his appearance was always 
most cheerful." 

His life had its pleasures, its happiness, its gay- 
eties, the tenderness of deep affection, the cheer 
of friendship, the amusement of little comic hap- 
penings ; it was a good life, a hundred times 
worth the living, if it had been only for the plea- 
sure of daily fight and daily victory ; but there 
were history, fame, roses, and a dozen things, 
each enough to make him hold life rich. All 
these found their way into his daily uneventful 
existence, and the years passed on far too quick. 

In July, 1886, after his experiment at camp- 
ing out with Mr. Farnham, he went to the Range- 
ley Lakes in Maine, where he lived at Bemis 
Camps, "F. C. Barker, Prop'r." He had not 
much to do there, and after a time ill health 
obliged him to give up even the moderate dis- 
comforts of Mr. Barker's proprietorship. 



LATER LIFE 299 

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS TO MISS PARKMAN. 

[Aug., 1886.] 

As I am forbidden to take any but the feeblest 
exercise, and as the light is very strong here, my 
resources for passing the time are limited. . . . 

Aug. 26. Tell Mike I wrote to him to pot the 
chrysanthemums about Sept. 1, and to order 
what pots are wanted. ... I think a little of 
building a log cabin here, with two small rooms 
for you, if you should want to come for a week, 
month, or more. It will cost little, and be inde- 
pendent of the rest. Board at Barker's. No 
servants needed. Barker will gladly do the job. 
How does it strike you? — all my affair, of 
course. 

This was a delightful plan, and the log cabin 
was begun with the happiest expectations, but 
the grim hand of disease laid hold of him, and 
the log cabin, half built, was abandoned for- 
ever. 

The next year he made a visit to Spain and 
France, in company with Dr. Algernon Coolidge. 

The trip was cut short by Parkman's ill health, 
and he went back to the flowers on the banks of 
Jamaica Pond, and to the winter life in Boston, 
where his attendance at the dinners of the Satur- 
day Club, and at the meetings of the St. Botolph 
Club, became gradually less and less. 

In the last summers of his life he used to go 
to Little Harbour, near Portsmouth, to pay a visit 



300 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

to his son and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge, 
and their children. Mr. Coolidge lived in the 
Wentworth mansion, which stands on a point of 
land where the Piscataqua runs into the sea. It 
is an old house, built in the reign of George II, 
with a rambling roof and a quaint, romantic 
aspect, telling stories of ancient days. Round 
the house are old lilac bushes ; on one side is one 
outlet of the river, on the other a creek, both at 
low tide almost dry, laying bare sandbank, mus- 
sel-bed, seaweed, rocks, and glistening, gleam- 
ing mud-flats, — strangely beloved by delicate 
colors that come as soon as the sea goes and 
linger till it drives them off again. Here Park- 
man liked to go a-fishing, — not with the fly of 
the Canadian camp, but with the homely worm 
or a vexed grasshopper ; on better days he got 
to the shore with a cane, on worse days with a 
crutch, but once safely in the little rowboat, he 
grasped the oars with the comfort of mastery, and 
rowed for hours at a smartish pace even when 
against the tide, or sometimes he would throw 
out his anchor and fish for cod and perch. He 
enjoyed his grandchildren very much, and his 
friends ; sometimes he had a chat with Mr. Bar- 
rett Wendell over Cotton Mather, or with Mr. 
Howells over that more modern New Englander, 
Silas Lapham, or, perhaps, in default of other 
society, he would play with the cat. 



LATER LIFE 301 

PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER — EXTRACTS. 

Tilings are here as usual, — all the worse for 
your absence ; I row every day and fish occa- 
sionally. The cat had a temporary seizure, in 
the nature of a mat de mer, in consequence of 
imprudent indulgence in lobster. The rest of 
the family are well. My eyes are less sensitive. 
Knees about as when I last wrote. I sometimes 
get to the wharf without the one horse shay ; but 
do not like to try it often. Have not slept well 
for two or three nights. Otherwise well enough. 
Want very much to see you. . . . 

Things go on here as usual. The afternoon 
of Tuesday was extremely hot, and the night 
still worse, so that sleep was out of the question. 
I made up for it last night. All well. I miss 
you extremely, though Katy [Mrs. Coolidge] 
has taken her lessons from you very well. . . . 

I have received from you a card, a note, and 
the bundle, of which the last two came yester- 
day. All were most welcome. I should be a very 
discreet young man if I were as thoughtful for 
myself as you are for me. You are the beau 
ideal of sisterhood ; of which I am always affec- 
tionately conscious, though I do not say much. 
I slept last night with the help of "pisen." 
Eyes better. Miriam [cat] has been suffering, 
as Molly [his granddaughter] conjectures, from 
the bite of a spider which she was munching 
in the grass ; but she Seems convalescent. Rest 
of the family well. The shoes were as welcome 
as unexpected. . . . 



302 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

It was a great disappointment to learn that 
you were not coming. Can you not come after 
your stay with T. ? I took Molly out fishing on 
Monday. She caught a sculpin and a pollock, 
which last was served up at tea, and pronounced 
by her to be one of the best fish she ever tasted. 
She was delighted with her success. Sleep very 
uncertain. . . . 

After having been able to get about more than 
for several years past, I was suddenly attacked, 
three days ago, by a greatly increased lameness 
of the old knee, and to-day can scarcely get out 
of the house at all, especially as a severe lum- 
bago is added, which makes my attempts at 
locomotion rather ridiculous. No cause that I 
can see. . . . 

All right here. The circus came off with eclat, 
and Molly was conspicuous in gymnastics. A 
goat race took place with applause. Louise 
[granddaughter] had a profusion of gifts, to 
which I made the contribution of an india rubber 
ball, chosen by her mother as of a safe nature. 

Things go as well here as the extreme heat 
will permit. I have got about more freely, and 
missing my crutches this morning, sent Molly to 
look for them. She found them in my room, as 
I had inadvertently come down without them, 
which causes me to pass for a bit of a humbug. 

Crock [a cat] has caused some moderated sor- 
row ; but I cannot wear crape as my hat is not 
adapted to it. Visitors come and go constantly. 
I am reasonably well and very glad to hear from 
you. 



LATER LIFE 303 

Thus the simple chronicle of the last years 
runs away. The " Half Century of Conflict " 
was published in the spring of 1892 ; and it is 
amusing to find the old difficulty about a name 
that had bothered him with " Pontiac." First 
he thought of the " Rivals," a dramatic name, 
then of the " Irrepressible Conflict," a political 
name, and then at last, the sister, upon whom 
he had gradually come to depend to a degree 
that even his strong, independent spirit at last 
understood, helped him with the happy solution. 

His work was then done ; there was no rea- 
son why he should tarry. After his visit to the 
Wentworth mansion in the summer of 1893, he 
returned to Jamaica Plain ; he went rowing on 
a Sunday, came back to the house, felt sick, 
and went to bed. His life had run its course, 
and after a brief illness, borne, like all his ills, 
with dignity, gentleness, and serenity, he died on 
November 8, 1893. 



CHAPTER XXV 

CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 

A man in his innermost core may be a unity, a 
homogeneous something, which remains always 
the same ; or if it change, changes with a uni- 
form movement, the whole being altering at once. 
Perhaps by " other eyes than ours " this inmost 
personality may be seen ; but in this world it 
is invisible, or else appears in such an endless 
variety of ways that we, guided by a practical 
philosophy, must face it in an agnostic attitude. 
Even the outer being shifts with the sun, with 
the air, with breakfast coffee, with this man's 
presence or that girl's absence, with hope, te- 
dium, prosperity. A man appears to his acquaint- 
ance this, to his neighbors that, to his friends 
thus and so, to his family different, and per- 
haps to the woman whom he loves different still. 
Therefore a biographer but goes a-fishing, seek- 
ing which of the many semblances appearing to 
one or another come in his judgment closer to 
that inmost self which, though the moving force 
within, he cannot touch. He must catch, as best 



CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 305 

he can, the traits, dispositions, manners, that 
have left their imprint here and there and put 
them together in some consistent fashion, so 
that they shall indicate, if possible, the move- 
ments of what he believes is the mainspring 
within. This makeshift is likely, at best, to be 
a botch. An honest purpose is the only excuse. 

The Parkmans, though Boston bred, and an- 
cestored by masters in theology, hailed from 
Devon, and among their family possessions had 
what need never be inquired about too curiously, 
— a coat-of-arms. On this there is a chevron, 
a field azure, a coronet, a helmet, and various 
heraldic appendages ; but for us the significant 
emblem lies in the crest, which depicts a " horse 
hurrant." Here we have the true device for 
Francis Parkman. Busy with little things, busy 
with big things, as a boy in Medford Fells and 
in his chemical laboratory, as a lad in the gym- 
nasium and on the banks of the Margalloway, 
as a man in his flower-garden and in his library, 
in his quick opinions, in his vigorous speech, in 
his wheeled chair or limping on canes, always in 
his heart there galloped or chafed the " horse 
hurrant." 

At Paris, once, on one of the visits made in 
later years in pursuit of documents, his friend 
M. Margry came to dine with him and his sis- 
ter. The fete was in honor of his birthday, — 



306 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

that memorable one crowned by the poem, — 
for Margry had wished to celebrate it, and the 
readiest way to forestall his gay proposals was 
to invite him to the hotel. The voluble little 
Frenchman talked and stayed, stayed and talked, 
till Parkman had to betake himself, cane in hand, 
upstairs for a few minutes' rest ; he dashed up- 
stairs with his youthful ardor. Margry caught 
sight of him, and nicknamed him "le cerf- volant," 
which is, I take it, a graceful French rendering 
of " horse hurrant." Thus it was always. Park- 
man's ardor hurled him on, obstacles stuck spurs 
into him, difficulties whipped and stung him ; 
onward he dashed, the hot spirit always bullying 
the body, and the poor body always paying the 
scot. To his daughter he was a " passionate Puri- 
tan," — the phrase is just. Under his stoicism, 
under his reserve, under his gentleness, all cast 
in the Puritan mould, was this passionate spirit. 
Chi non arde non risplende, as the Umbrian 
proverb says. When he was lying on his sick- 
bed, ill and helpless, a lady came to see him ; 
eager to be of comfort, she said, " Oh, think of 
what you have done." "Done!" he cried, his 
head rising from the pillow, " done ! there is 
much more still for me to do ! " 

The Puritan inheritance mingles with its stead- 
fastness a certain sternness not unbecoming a 
man. The soldier must be stern ; and there are 



CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 307 

certain photographs of Parkman that throw into 
prominence his fine jaw, and reveal a latent 
sternness needful for a lifelong battle with phy- 
sical ills, and by him well put to use in resistance 
to the unseen enemy that robbed him of his eyes, 
his legs, and the use of his brain. That stern- 
ness was but his coat of mail ; when he came 
forth unarmed from his dark chamber, and was 
left at ease to enjoy his friends, then, even in 
later years when the gifts of youth had left him, 
women young and old found him charming, 
younger men admired his refined, scholarly face, 
his gentle manners, and recognized too his "boy- 
ish freshness of feeling and nature." To men of 
his own age he was " a most entertaining com- 
panion." When some gentlemen in Boston, in- 
terested in art and letters, organized the St. 
Botolph Club, he was chosen president, not 
merely because he was a distinguished man of 
letters, but because he was a good fellow and 
delightful company. 

He belonged to the generation that in creed 
represented the reaction against Puritanism ; he 
could remember the pinch of the vanishing Pu- 
ritan oppression, and was not born late enough 
to look at it with the eyes of the succeeding gen- 
eration, — those eyes to which that generation 
modestly ascribes such perfect vision. He was 
strongly averse to the Puritan creed, to their 



308 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

theocracy, their narrowness, their injustice, and 
perhaps did not see how closely their virtues 
resembled his own, — courage, fortitude, love 
of truth as they saw it, and a passionate ardor 
in pursuing their ends. Like them, he went un- 
troubled by doubts ; he made up his mind and 
was indifferent to disagreement. Like them, he 
was immensely conservative: the inheritance from 
the past must be held to; the dreams of men, 
discontented with the lot meted to them and 
their fellows, — dreams of new forms of society, 
new conceptions of social order, were to him 
delusions of vanity rigidly to be pushed away. 
He deemed New England of a generation or 
more ago " perhaps the most successful demo- 
cracy on earth," but the growth and development 
of modern democracy filled him with detesta- 
tion ; he beheld in it " organized ignorance, led 
by unscrupulous craft, and marching, amid the 
applause of fools, under the flag of equal rights." 
He felt strongly on new theories, just as his an- 
cestors the Cottons, or their friends the Mathers, 
would have felt, and he spoke forcibly just as 
they would have done. " Out of the wholesome 
fruits of the earth, and the staff of life itself, 
the perverse chemistry of man distills delirious 
vapors, which, condensed and bottled, exalt his 
brain with glorious fantasies, and then leave 
him in the mud." So it is (for example), he 



CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 309 

says, with those deluded people who are in favor 
of woman suffrage. 

Not that he did not admire and respect wo- 
men, — he did, for cause passing common, — but 
he did not like the notion of woman suffrage. 
On a loose sheet shut into a notebook kept in 
Bemis Camps in 1886 is this entry : " The first 
and fundamental requisites of women, as of men, 
are physical, moral, and mental health. It is for 
men to rear the political superstructure ; it is 
for women to lay its foundation. God rules the 
world by fixed laws, moral and physical; and 
according as men and women observe or violate 
these laws will be the destinies of communities 
and individuals for this world and the next. 
The higher education is necessary to the higher 
order of women to the end that they may dis- 
charge their function of civilizing agent ; but it 
should be cautiously limited to the methods and 
degree that consist with the discharge of their 
functions of maternity. Health of body and mind 
is the one great essential. In America men 
are belittled and cramped by the competition of 
business, from which women are, or ought to be, 
free. Hence they have opportunities of moral 
and mental growth better in some respects than 
those of men." 

There was a grim vigor in his speech on these 
distasteful subjects, that betrayed the Puritan 



310 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

character. Perhaps this masculine vigor, this 
rude immalleability, make a special charm to a 
younger generation bred upon a somewhat milk 
and water skepticism for principles and theories, 
whether old or new. He was masculine in his 
outlook on life and on all its chief matters. He 
despised effeminacy, self-coddling, comfort-lov- 
ing ; hardly less also he disliked the coddling of 
others, the " effusive humanitarianism " of New 
England " melting into sentimentality at a tale 
of woe," as he called it, that tended to concen- 
trate interest and sympathy on the feeble rather 
than on the strong and self-sustaining. He liked 
a masculine judgment, readiness not untempered 
by a heady 'vigor, but devoid of sentimental sur- 
charge ; he could not tolerate fanaticism. There- 
fore in the slavery days he was out of patience 
with the abolitionists of Massachusetts, men, as 
he thought, of a feminine intemperance, of un- 
masculine mawkishness, who neglected the real 
ideals of the country for the benefit of a few 
scattered fugitives of an inferior race, which 
had not the pluck to strike a blow for itself. 

It was this belief that men should be mascu- 
line that led him to the natural corollary that 
women should be feminine. Like other men of 
a male temper, he enjoyed the distinctive fem- 
inine traits, unreasoning sympathy, instinctive 
comprehension, absolute self-abnegation, delicate 



CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 311 

sensibility. He took great pleasure in the soci- 
ety of women, and in their company was wont 
to drop most freely the outer semblance of the 
warrior, that blending of sternness and determi- 
nation, which others sometimes found in him. 
This wish always to keep the two types, mu- 
tually complementary, separate and apart, lay 
at the bottom of his putting Washington so 
much higher than Lincoln as a hero ; for the 
womanly tenderness of Lincoln seemed to him 
out of place. He liked a man who could get 
angry in time of need, and vent his anger in 
blunt, rough words. 

By his creed and by his practice he belonged 
to the sect of the Stoics, a disciple worthy of 
the sect's happiest days ; his favorite virtue was 
fortitude, and of all men of philosophic mind, 
Marcus Aurelius was his accepted pattern. In 
his youth he jotted down in his private diary 
his resistance to the strongest temptation that 
assails the body ; and his manhood was a con- 
stant obedience to self-restraint, in order that he 
might fulfill his work. In spirit he was always 
mindful of the noble emperor's words, " Take 
care always to remember that you are a man and 
a Roman; and let every action be done with 
perfect and unaffected gravity, humanity, free- 
dom, and justice." His friends bear witness that 
again and again he had to restrain his vehement 



312 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

impulses to rash speech or action ; again and 
again with a calm exterior batten the hatches on 
a mutinous mood. This antique Puritan, with 
fire fetched from Devon burning within him, 
took care to remember that he was a man and 
a gentleman, and bore himself with gentleness 
and justice. 

Perhaps his aristocratic bent helped him to 
self-control. In this bent there was no touch of 
vainglory, no trace of a willingness to live upon 
the good report of ancestors ; but a notion, in 
part begotten no doubt from the general social 
theories prevalent in the stately old house in 
Bowdoin Square, in part based on reasoning, 
and justified by his purpose to prove that his 
place was beside the best. We may perceive his 
views of men, when he speaks of the rose : — 

Like all things living, in the world of mind 
or of matter, the rose is beautified, enlarged, and 
strengthened by a course of judicious and per- 
severing culture, continued through successive 
generations. The art of horticulture is no lev- 
eler. Its triumphs are achieved by rigid systems 
of selection and rejection, founded always on the 
broad basis of intrinsic worth. The good culti- 
vator propagates no plants but the best. He 
carefully chooses those marked out by conspicu- 
ous merit ; protects them from the pollen of in- 
ferior sorts; intermarries them, perhaps, with 
other varieties of equal vigor and beauty ; saves 



CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 313 

their seed, and raises from it another generation. 
From the new plants thus obtained he again 
chooses the best, and repeats with them the same 
process. Thus the rose and other plants are 
brought slowly to their perfect development. It 
is in vain to look for much improvement by 
merely cultivating one individual. We cultivate 
the parent, and look for our reward in the off- 
spring. 

Such was his theory, and if we meet with a 
little lift of the eyebrows, a little look askant, 
when he regards nouveaux riches, we know that 
the movement was due not to snobbery, but to 
what he deemed personal and inherited experi- 
ence. In a notebook kept while he was overseer 
of Harvard College, there are memoranda of 
notes of opinions gathered from the older pro- 
fessors ; and among other opinions is this, which 
evidently squared satisfactorily with his own 
conclusions, — " The best class of students are 
those of families of inherited wealth or easy 
means, sons of nouveaux riches do not make 
scholars." But such a feeling never degener- 
ated into a class spirit. Speaking on a subject 
in which he took a deep interest, he says : — 

The public schools, moreover, are democratic 
institutions in the best sense of the words ; and, 
on a broader and more comprehensive scale, 
they produce the effects which are said to be the 
peculiar advantages of the great English en- 



314 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

dowed schools. They bring together children of 
different walks in life, and weaken mutual pre- 
judices by force of mutual contact, teach the rich 
to know the poor, and the poor to know the rich, 
and so sap the foundations of class jealousies 
and animosities. The common schools are cru- 
cibles in which races, nationalities, and creeds 
are fused together till all alike become Ameri- 
can. 

But his books reveal his character better than 
I can suggest it, not only by their obvious admi- 
rations, but by their reticence. The historian 
never mentions himself except to point a foot- 
note ; he wears the dignified ermine of historic 
impartiality, but a generous heart cannot hide 
itself. By his loves he shall be known. Nobody 
can read the pages on Champlain, on La Salle, 
Brebeuf, or Wolfe, and not know that these are 
the heroes whose high deeds quickened a kin- 
dred soul. 

Yet the reader would not know, nor would an 
acquaintance in life have guessed, that this stu- 
dious gentleman, with his firm jaw and his schol- 
arly brow, of decided views and occasional bursts 
of vigorous speech, was tenderly sensitive to sym- 
pathy. The show of unwarranted compassion or 
officious pity from some person outside the inner 
circle of those that loved him was coldly pushed 
aside ; but real sympathy, offered as one manly 
man may offer it to another, or tendered by a 



CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 315 

woman who had the right to tender it, when ex- 
pressed with reticence and restraint, or indicated 
in action rather than speech, went straight to his 
heart. It was more acceptable to him even than 
fame, and he was very ambitious. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 

The story of a scholar is uneventful ; it is made 
up of travels, rummagings, notes, dictation, and 
printing ; it lies far from the madding crowd, 
remote from the bustle of politics and the creak- 
ing machinery of national life. Parkman's infirm- 
ities intensified this seclusion ; they forced him 
to sport his oak against all except extreme inti- 
macy, and intimacy is shy of the chronicler ; but 
a biography with no allusion to intimacy is but 
a shell, a case, a cover, and lets the reader carry 
away an impression that the man had none of 
those close affections that reveal themselves in 
trifling commerce, in looks, in smiles, and silence. 
This intimacy of Parkman's needs a pen plucked 
" from an angel's wing," for his deepest feelings 
radiated from his presence, and no one could say 
just how they had been expressed ; and part of 
it should be told by Robin Goodfellow, for his 
playfulness, his fun, his fondness for nonsense, 
pass in the telling. 

He spent his life between the town house — 



A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 317 

his mother's during her life, then his sister's — 
and his country house at Jamaica Plain; they 
were his guests in summer, he theirs in winter. 
At 50 Chestnut Street he had the top floor as his 
apartment, his bedroom to the south, his study 
to the north. The stairs that lead thither have a 
half-fulfilled inclination to wind ; in later years, a 
little elevator for his private use spared him the 
stairs he often could not climb. The study was 
his home, for illness prevented him from taking 
an ordinary part in family life. He came down 
to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but was gen- 
erally silent, and went up again directly after 
the meal was finished. In the study he spent 
his time, working when he could. One winter 
he employed a young woman, a public school- 
teacher, as his amanuensis ; she was wholly ig- 
norant of French, and read the copied archives 
with a pure Yankee pronunciation. But all the 
rest of the time, his sister or some member of 
his family wrote for him while he dictated. In- 
somnia kept him awake at night, and during 
these wakeful hours, and also in the long periods 
of repose during the day, he would think of his 
writing, and put sentence to sentence and para- 
graph to paragraph, so that when he began to 
dictate he proceeded in orderly progress as if he 
were reading from a book. Thus, barring the 
interruptions of illness, he proceeded day by day, 



318 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

until chapter was added to chapter, volume to 
volume, and the whole at last finished. 

The "gridirons " were used in earlier years, at 
times from 1850 to 1860. There were three of 
these in all, very much alike, the later ones hav- 
ing being made to improve on the earlier model. 
The last is a little metal frame twelve inches by 
eight, with wire bars running across like lines 
on ruled paper, some sixteen in all. Underneath 
this grill the sheet of paper was slipped in, with 
a metal back to write on. With this contrivance, 
following the wire by touch, he could write in 
the dark without looking. It is an eloquent wit- 
ness, — 

" Stone walls do not a prison make 
Nor iron bars a cage," — 

nor blindness, nor pain, nor manifold privations 
to the man of heroic temper. 

In the evening Miss Parkman would read 
aloud to him books of various kinds, novels often. 
He liked a good, strong story, like "Monte 
Cristo " or " The Wandering Jew," or some 
classic like Miss Austen's novels or " Evelina ; " 
just as in early days he had loved Cooper and 
Scott. Poetry he liked, but not all. Wordsworth 
he could not bear, Byron he enjoyed ; but he al- 
most always had a volume of Shakespeare on his 
table, often open ; sometimes he was able to read 
a few lines, but commonly the silent presence was 



A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 319 

enough. One of his last gifts to his wife was a 
fine copy of Milton. 

After his mother died, two nieces, the daugh- 
ters of his sister Caroline, Mrs. Cordner, were 
frequent inmates of the house, and they, with 
Miss Parkman, were the only confidantes of his 
wilder nonsense. To his friends he passed as a 
man rather lacking in humor, rather inclined to 
take statements au pied de la lettre ; but in the 
summer time, the tap of the cane coming down- 
stairs was the reveille for jokes and nonsense. 
The audience was on tiptoe with expectation, 
and the performance was always received with 
fullest appreciation ; and even if brother and 
sister were alone, the humor, if less boisterous, 
was gay. The cheer was no counterfeit, but born 
of an honest gratitude for the happy things in 
life; it also served to hide his pain from the 
others, and even from himself, for he could not 
take part in ordinary conversation, and silence 
had a painful physical effect on him. 

As it was with his nonsense, so too it was with 
his intimate tenderness, only those who lived 
under the same roof with him realized it to the 
full. His daughters and his little nieces used to 
make him visits twice a year, — two months in 
the spring and two in the autumn ; they used to 
be at that breakfast-table, giggling for the non- 
sense to come, and they knew how to read the 



320 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

tenderness in his eye, and did not need to wait 
for words, for they knew that the " horse hur- 
rant " had great difficulty with those most clumsy 
instruments for expressing tenderness — English 
monosyllables. The visits were always at Jamaica 
Pond, and one of them would row with him in 
the boat, or go a- visiting the roses and the lilies ; 
or he would help them to disentangle the fish- 
line and bait the hook, or, it might be, arrange 
the aquatic flora and fauna in their little aqua- 
rium ; or when they said good-by, he would go 
to the greenhouse to choose a plant for them ; 
and here they found that the language of flowers 
was also far better than that of the dictionary. 
These nieces, too, bear witness to his triumphant 
self-mastery; during all the years from their 
childhood to womanhood, — in town, when they 
were not staying in the same house, they lived 
across the street and ran in daily, — during all 
these years they never once heard an impatient 
word fall from his lips, they never once saw an 
impatient look ; they merely could divine that 
he would not let them be troubled by his pain. 
This is the triumph of stoicism, of the sweet 
stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, mingled in no 
small measure with the teachings of the Gali- 
lean fisherman. 

Thus I come to the end of this uneventful 
story ; but there are a few more pages to com- 



A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 321 

plete this little picture of his later life and its 
intimacies. At Jamaica Plain, in those latter 
days, — when gardening and horticultural prizes 
were things of the past, — every morning he and 
his sister went rowing. This pond is not very 
big, and does not afford a great variety of scene 
nor of incident, and the dreary repetition had to 
be enriched by art. Here Parkman gave loose 
rein to his boyish imagination. Every afternoon 
they went for a drive, with Michael, the gardener, 
— known to his intimates as Mike, — driving. 
Parkman had no natural love for a carriage ; the 
"horse hurrant" despised the slow and tedious 
monotony of the inevitable road, but his fancy 
filled the borders of the way with historic scenes, 
and would not permit his helplessness to darken 
their horizon. 

Parkman was very fond of cats, and though 
they were rigidly excluded from the library, in 
the evening there was always a cat — Peter or 
Sarah or Molly — who sat on his lap, or curled 
on the rug and purred its thoughts into a most 
sympathetic ear. He had always had a weakness 
for them. Once when Miss Parkman was in 
Paris, we find him writing, 1872, a year or two 
after the siege of Paris, " You are also to be 
congratulated on the discovery of two Angoras, 
which I trust were favorable specimens. There 
used to be a good one in the lodge of the con- 



322 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

cierge at No. 123 Av. de Champs Elysees, but 
the accidents of war may have removed her from 
the sphere which she adorned and consigned her 
to the frying-pan." 

He makes a point of the Angora blood here, 
but that is an affectation ; good cats, bad cats, 
lean cats, fat cats, well-bred or wayfarers, ears 
torn, tailless, young and old, had some claim 
on his interest. He liked nothing better than to 
sit in summer time on the veranda festooned 
with wisteria, and stroke a little cat, and listen 
to its purring, and help it to make itself per- 
fectly comfortable on his lap. Not only cats, 
but pictures of cats, photographs of cats, effigies 
of cats abounded. In especial there was one 
flannel likeness, whiskered with red silk, eyed 
with green beads, and featured pathetically with 
cotton thread, presented to him by his little 
granddaughter. When he went to Portsmouth 
to pay her his summer visit, he tucked this flan- 
nel slander of a cat under his coat and brought 
it forth triumphantly, she believing that it had 
been cherished next his waistcoat all the winter. 
He had played the same comedy with the child's 
mother when she was a little girl. 

My dear Katy, — Me and Creem are wel. 
We send u our luv. We do not fite now. We 
have milk every day. One day, when i was play- 
ing under the evergreens, Creem would not lap 



A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 323 

her milk till she had come out and told me that 
it was reddy, and we both went and lapped it 
together. Papa holds me every night to keep 
me tame. . . . Yors till deth, 

Floka, her m x ark [mark]. 

(I struggled so, my paw has not made a good 
mark.) 

P. S. Plese bring me a skulpin. 

P. P. S. Papa says to thank Grace for her 
letter, and he is glad she is having such a good 
time. 

N. B. This is a lok of my fer, with best luv 
of Yors in haste, Puss. [Lock of fur fastened 
on.] 



The cats returned his affection, and loved to 
curl their backs, and rub up against his legs. 

His own children, after their mother's death, 
had gone to live with their aunt, Miss Bigelow, 
who brought them up as if they had been her 
own, so that Parkman was spared the care he 
could not give and yet had the pleasure of see- 
ing them constantly, for Dr. Bigelow's house was 
hard by. In the early summer and again in the 
autumn they made him a visit at Jamaica Plain. 
The elder daughter, Grace, took her chief plea- 
sure in the pond and the boat, but the younger, 
Katy, liked the garden best, and every morn- 
ing trudged after her father, basket in hand, as 
he walked down the paths with his campstool 
under his arm on the matinal expedition to cut 



324 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

flowers for the house or to send to his friends. 
Whatever different occupations the three might 
find during the day, at dusk they met at his sofa 
in the " ante-room," where he narrated story after 
story with Grace sitting beside him, and Katy 
perched on the back of the sofa. He inspired 
them with deep respect, affection, and admira- 
tion. 

In later years, after his daughters were mar- 
ried, when on the whole he suffered less and had 
the sustaining sense that his work was substan- 
tially finished, he enjoyed his grandchildren very 
much, letting them see, perhaps, more of his 
tender, playful side than he had been able to 
show to their parents. So his life went by, loved 
by his cats, his family, his friends, his kindred, 
and his fellow historians ; and it was cheered 
and brightened by kind and generous expressions 
of affection, on such occasions as when he re- 
signed from the presidency of the St. Botolph 
Club, or attained his seventieth year. 

I am not sure that I have spoken enough of 
his gentleness, and I have said too little of his 
modesty. John Fiske was once delivering a lec- 
ture on " America's Place in History," at Haw- 
thorne Hall, in Boston; he alluded to Pontiac 
and his conspiracy, and said that it was memo- 
rable as " the theme of one of the most brilliant 
and fascinating books that have ever been writ- 



A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 325 

ten by any historian since the days of Herodotus." 
The words were hardly out of his mouth when 
he caught sight of Parkman in the audience. He 
says, " I shall never forget the sudden start which 
he gave, and the heightened color of his noble 
face, with its curious look of surprise and plea- 
sure, an expression as honest and simple as one 
might witness in a rather shy schoolboy sud- 
denly singled out for praise. I was so glad that 
I had said what I did without thinking of his 
hearing me." 

Parkman's memory is linked forever with the 
first great epoch in American history; and a 
memorial in stone is to be placed near the edge 
of Jamaica Pond hard by the dock from which 
he used to push his little boat when he and his 
sister went for their daily row around the pond. 
Two great monoliths will stand, one on each 
side of a stone seat ; in one the sculptor has 
carved the figure of an Indian, in the other an 
image of the Spirit of the Woods, — the com- 
rades of Parkman's boyhood. 

After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Val- 
iant-for-Truth was taken with a summons. . . . 
When he understood it, he called for his friends, 
and told them of it. Then said he, ..." though 
with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now 
I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been 
at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to 



326 FRANCIS PARKMAN 

him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and 
my courage and skill to him that can get it. My 
marks and scars I carry with me." . . . 

When the day that he must go hence was 
come, many accompanied him to the river-side, 
into which as he went he said, " Death, where 
is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, 
he said, " Grave, where is thy victory ? " So 
he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded 
on the other side. 



APPENDIX 



Letter written to Mr. Martin Brimmer in 1886, 
with instructions to be kept until after Park- 
man's death, and then to be given to the Mas- 
sachusetts Historical Society : — 

My dear Brimmer, — I once told you that I 
should give you some account of the circumstances 
under which my books were written. Here it is, with 
some preliminary pages to explain the rest. I am 
sorry there is so much of it : — 

Causes antedating my birth gave me constitutional 
liabilities to which I largely ascribe the mischief that 
ensued. As a child I was sensitive and restless, rarely 
ill, but never robust. At eight years I was sent to a 
farm belonging to my maternal grandfather on the 
outskirts of the extensive tract of wild and rough 
woodland now called Middlesex Fells. I walked 
twice a day to a school of high but undeserved repu- 
tation about a mile distant, in the town of Medford. 
Here I learned very little, and spent the intervals of 
schooling more profitably in collecting eggs, insects, 
and reptiles, trapping squirrels and woodchucks, and 
making persistent though rarely fortunate attempts 






328 APPENDIX 

to kill birds with arrows. After four years of this 
rustication I was brought back to Boston, when I was 
unhappily seized with a mania for experiments in 
chemistry involving a lonely, confined, unwholesome 
sort of life, baneful to body and mind. This lasted 
till the critical age of fifteen, when a complete change 
came over me — I renounced crucibles and retorts 
and took to books ; read poetry and fancied for a 
while that I could write it ; conceived literary ambi- 
tions, and, at the same time, began to despise a liter- 
ary life and to become enamored of the backwoods. 
This new passion — which proved permanent — was 
no doubt traceable in part to fond recollections of the 
Middlesex Fells, as well as to one or two journeys 
which I was permitted to make into some of the 
wilder parts of New England. It soon got full pos- 
session of me, and mixed itself with all my literary 
aspirations. In this state of mind I went to college, 
where I divided my time about equally between books 
and active exercises, of which last I grew inordinately 
fond, and in which I was ambitious beyond measure 
to excel. 

My favorite backwoods were always in my thoughts. 
At first I tried to persuade myself that I could woo 
this new mistress in verse ; then I came down to fic- 
tion, and at last reached the sage though not flattering 
conclusion that if I wanted to build in her honor any 
monument that would stand, I must found on solid 
fact. Before the end of the sophomore year my vari- 
ous schemes had crystallized into a plan of writing 
the story of what was thus known as the " Old French 



APPENDIX 329 

War ; " that is, the war that ended in the conquest 
of Canada ; for here, as it seemed to me, the forest 
drama was more stirring and the forest stage more 
thronged with appropriate actors than in any other 
passage of our history. It was not till some years 
later that I enlarged the plan to include the whole 
course of the American conflict between France and 
England ; or, in other words, the history of the Amer- 
ican forest ; for this was the light in which I regarded 
it. My theme fascinated me, and I was haunted with 
wilderness images day and night. 

From this time forward, two ideas possessed me. 
One was to paint the forest and its tenants in true 
and vivid colors ; the other was to realize a certain 
ideal of manhood, a little mediaeval, but nevertheless 
good. Feeling that I fell far short of it, I proceeded 
in extreme dissatisfaction to apply heroic remedies. 
I held the creed that the more hard knocks a man 
gets, whether in mind or body, the better for him, 
provided always that he takes them without flinching ; 
and as the means of forcing myself up to the required 
standard, I put my faith in persistent violence which 
I thought energy. I held that the true aim of life 
was not happiness but achievement ; had profound re- 
spect for physical strength and hardihood when joined 
with corresponding qualities of character ; took plea- 
sure in any moderate hardship, scorned invalidism of 
all kinds, and was full of the notion, common enough 
with boys of a certain sort, that the body will always 
harden and toughen with exercise and exposure. I 
remember to have had a special aversion for the Rev. 



330 APPENDIX 

Dr. Charming, not for his heresies, but for his meager 
proportions, sedentary habits, environment of close 
air and female parishioners, and his preachments of 
the superiority of mind over matter ; for, while I had 
no disposition to gainsay his proposition in the ab- 
stract, it was a cardinal point with me that while the 
mind remains a habitant of earth, it cannot dispense 
with a sound material basis, and that to neglect and 
decry the corporeal part in the imagined interest of 
the spiritual is proof of a nature either emasculate 
or fanatical. For my own part, instead of neglect- 
ing, I fell to lashing and spurring it into vigor and 
prosperity. 

Meanwhile I diligently pursued my literary scheme. 
While not exaggerating the importance of my sub- 
ject, I felt that it had a peculiar life of its own, of 
which I caught tantalizing glimpses, to me irresistibly 
attractive. I felt far from sure that I was equal to 
the task of rekindling it, calling out of the dust the 
soul and body of it and making it a breathing reality. 
I was like some smitten youth plagued with harrow- 
ing doubts as to whether he can win the mistress of 
his fancy. I tried to gauge my own faculties, and was 
displeased with the result. Nevertheless, I resolved 
that if my steed was not a thoroughbred, I would at 
least get his best paces out of him, and I set myself 
to a strenuous course of training for the end in view. 
A prime condition of success was an unwearied delv- 
ing into dusty books and papers, a kind of work 
which I detested ; and I came to the agreeable yet 
correct conclusion that the time for this drudgery was 



APPENDIX 331 

not come ; that my present business was, so to speak, 
to impregnate myself with my theme, fill my mind 
with impressions from real life, range the woods, mix 
with Indians and frontiersmen, visit the scenes of the 
events I meant to describe, and so bring myself as 
near as might be to the times with which I was to 
deaL Accordingly, I spent all my summer vacations 
in the woods or in Canada, at the same time reading 
such books as I thought suited, in a general way, to 
help me towards my object. I pursued these lucubra- 
tions with a pernicious intensity, keeping my plans 
and purposes to myself, while passing among my com- 
panions as an outspoken fellow. 

The danger into which I was drifting rose from the 
excessive stimulus applied to nerves which had too 
much stimulus of their own. I was not, however, at 
all nervous in the sense in which that term is com- 
monly understood, and I regarded nervous people 
with more pity than esteem. The mischief was work- 
ing underground. If it had come to the surface, the 
effects would probably have been less injurious. I 
flattered myself I was living wisely because I avoided 
the more usual excesses, but I fell into others quite 
as baneful, riding my hobbies with unintermitting 
vehemence, and carrying bodily exercise to a point 
where it fatigues instead of strengthening. In short, 
I burned the candle at both ends. 

The first hint that my method of life was not to 
prove a success occurred in my junior year, in the 
shape of a serious disturbance in the action of the 
heart, of which the immediate cause was too violent 



332 APPENDIX 

exercise in the gymnasium. I was thereupon ordered 
to Europe, where I spent the greater part of a year, 
never losing sight of my plans and learning much 
that helped to forward them. Returning in time to 
graduate with my class, I was confronted with the 
inevitable question, What next ? The strong wish of 
my father that I should adopt one of the so-called regu- 
lar professions determined me to enter the Harvard 
Law School. 

Here, while following the prescribed courses at a 
quiet pace, I entered in earnest on two other courses, 
one of general history, the other of Indian history and 
ethnology, and at the same time studied diligently the 
models of English style ; which various pursuits were 
far from excluding the pleasures of society. In the 
way of preparation and preliminary to my principal 
undertaking, I now resolved to write the history of 
the Indian War under Pontiac, as offering peculiar 
opportunities for exhibiting forest life and Indian 
character ; and to this end I began to collect mate- 
rials by travel and correspondence. The labor was not 
slight, for the documents were widely scattered on 
both sides of the Atlantic ; but at the beginning of 
1846 the collection was nearly complete. 

I had been conscious for some time of an over- 
stimulated condition of the brain. While constantly 
reminding myself that the task before me was a long 
one, that haste was folly, and that the slow way was 
the surer and better one, I felt myself spurred for- 
ward irresistibly. It was like a rider whose horse has 
got the bit between his teeth, and who, while seeing 



APPENDIX 333 

his clanger, cannot stop. As the mischief gave no 
outward sign, nobody was aware of it but myself. At 
last, however, a weakness of the eyes, which was one 
of its symptoms, increased so fast that I was forced 
to work with the eyes of others. I now resolved to 
execute a scheme which I had long meditated. This 
was to visit the wild tribes of the far West, and live 
among them for a time, as a necessary part of train- 
ing for my work. I hoped by exchanging books and 
documents for horse and rifle to gain three objects at 
once — health, use of sight, and personal knowledge 
of savage life. The attempt did not prosper. I was 
attacked on the plains by a wasting and dangerous 
disorder, which had not ceased when I returned to 
the frontier five months later. In the interval I was 
for some weeks encamped with a roving band of Sioux 
at the Rocky Mountains, with one rough though not 
unfaithful attendant. It would have been suicidal 
to accept the part of an invalid, and I was sometimes 
all day in the saddle, when in civilized life complete 
rest would have been thought indispensable. I lived 
like my red companions, and sometimes joined them 
in their hunting, with the fatiguing necessity of being 
always armed and on the watch. To one often giddy 
with the exhaustion of disease, the strain on the sys- 
tem was great. After going back to civilization, the 
malady gradually subsided, after setting in action a 
train of other disorders which continued its work. In 
a year or more I was brought to a state of nervous 
prostration that debarred all mental effort, and was 
attended with a weakness of sight that for a time 



334 APPENDIX 

threatened blindness. Before reaching this pass I 
wrote the " Oregon Trail " by dictation. Complete 
repose, to me the most detestable of prescriptions, was 
enjoined upon me, and from intense activity I found 
myself doomed to helpless inaction. Such chance of 
success as was left lay in time, patience, and a studied 
tranquillity of spirit ; and I felt, with extreme disgust, 
that there was nothing for it but to renounce past 
maxims and habits and embrace others precisely the 
opposite. An impulse seized me to return to the 
Rocky Mountains, try a hair of the dog that bit me, 
and settle squarely the question to be or not to be. It 
was the time of the Mexican War, and I well remem- 
ber with what envious bitterness I looked at a col- 
ored print in a shop window, representing officers 
and men carrying a field battery into action at the 
battle of Buena Vista. I believe that I would will- 
ingly have borne any amount of bodily pain, pro- 
vided only I could have brought with it the power 
of action. 

After a while — as anything was better than idle- 
ness — I resolved on cautiously attempting to make 
use of the documents already collected for the " Con- 
spiracy of Pontiac." They were read to me by friends 
and relatives at times when the brain was least rebel- 
lious, and I wrote without use of sight, by means of 
a sort of literary gridiron or frame of parallel wires, 
laid on the page to guide the hand. For some months 
the average rate of progress did not exceed three or 
four lines a day, and the chapters thus composed were 
afterwards rewritten. If, as I was told, brain work 



APPENDIX 335 

was poison, the dose was homeopathic and the effect 
was good, for within a year I could generally work, 
with the eyes of others, two hours or more a day, and 
in about three years the book was finished. 

I then began to gather materials for the earlier 
volumes of the series of France and England in North 
America, though, as I was prevented from traveling 
by an extreme sensitiveness of the retina which made 
sunlight insupportable, the task of collection seemed 
hopeless. I began, however, an extensive correspond- 
ence, and was flattering myself that I might succeed 
at last, when I was attacked with an effusion of water 
on the knee, which subsided in two or three months, 
then returned, kept me a prisoner for two years, and 
deprived me of necessary exercise for several years 
more. The consequence was that the devil which had 
been partially exorcised returned triumphant. The 
evil now centred in the head, producing cerebral 
symptoms of such a nature that, in 1853, the physi- 
cian who attended me at the time, after cautious cir- 
cumlocution, said in a low and solemn voice that his 
duty required him to warn me that death would prob- 
ably follow within six months, and stood amazed at 
the smile of incredulity with which the announcement 
was received. I had known my enemy longer than 
he, and learned that its mission was not death, but 
only torment. Five years later another physician — 
an eminent physiologist of Paris, where I then was — 
tried during the whole winter to discover the par- 
ticular manifestations of the insanity which he was 
convinced must needs attend the symptoms he had 



336 APPENDIX 

observed, and told me at last what he had been about. 
" What conclusion have you reached ? " I asked. 
" That I never knew a saner man in my life." 
" But," said I, " what is the chance that this brain of 
mine will ever get into working order again ? " He 
shook his head and replied, "It is not impossible " — 
with which I was forced to content myself. 

Between 1852 and 1860 this cerebral rebellion 
passed through great and seemingly capricious fluctu- 
ations. It had its ebbs and floods. Slight and some- 
times imperceptible causes would produce an access 
which sometimes lasted with little respite for months. 
When it was in its milder moods I used the opportu- 
nity to collect material and prepare ground for future 
work, should work ever become practicable. When it 
was at its worst the condition was not enviable. I could 
neither listen to reading nor engage in conversation, 
even of the lightest. Sleep was difficult and was often 
banished entirely for one or two nights, during which 
the brain was apt to be in a state of abnormal activ- 
ity, which had to be repressed at any cost, since 
thought produced the intensest torture. The effort 
required to keep the irritated organ quiet was so fa- 
tiguing that I occasionally rose and spent hours in the 
open air, where I found distraction and relief in 
watching the policemen and the tramps on the malls 
of Boston Common, at the risk of passing for a tramp 
myself. Towards the end of the night this cerebral 
excitation would seem to tire itself out, and gave 
place to a condition of weight and oppression much 
easier to bear. 



APPENDIX 337 

Having been inclined to look with slight esteem on 
invalidism, the plight in which I found myself was 
mortifying ; but I may fairly say that I never called 
on others to bear the burden of it, and always kept 
up a show of equanimity and good humor. The worst 
strain on these was when the Civil War broke out and 
I was doomed to sit an idle looker on. 

After it became clear that literary work must be 
indefinitely suspended, I found a substitute in horticul- 
ture ; and am confident that I owe it in good measure 
to the kindly influence of that gracious pursuit that 
the demon in the brain was gradually soothed into 
comparative quiet. In 1861 I was able, with frequent 
interruptions, to take up my work again. At the same 
time there was such amendment as regards sight that 
I could bear the sunlight without blinking, and read 
for several minutes at once without stopping to rest 
the eyes, though my chief dependence was still in 
those of others. In 1865 " The Pioneers " was fin- 
ished, and the capacity of work both of brain and eye 
had much increased. " The Jesuits " was finished in 
1867 ; " The Discovery of the Great West," in 1869 ; 
" The Old Regime," in 1874 ; and " Frontenac," in 
1877. " Montcalm and Wolfe," which involved more 
labor, was not ready till 1884. 

While engaged on these books I made many jour- 
neys in the United States and Canada in search of 
material, and went four times to Europe with a simi- 
lar object. The task of exploring archives and col- 
lecting documents, to me repulsive at the best, was, 
under the circumstances, difficult, and would have 



338 APPENDIX 

been impossible but for the aid of competent assistants 
working under my direction. 

Taking the last forty years as a whole, the capacity 
of literary work which during that time has fallen to 
my share has, I am confident, been considerably less 
than a fourth part of what it would have been under 
normal conditions. Whether the historical series in 
hand will ever be finished I do not know, but I shall 
finish it if I can. Yours faithfully, 

F. Parkman. 

Jamaica Plain, 28 Oct., 1886. 



APPENDIX 339 



POEM BY DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Read at the Special Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society in Memory of Francis Parkman, November 21, 1893. 

He rests from toil ; the portals of the tomb 
Close on the last of those unwearying- hands 

That wove their pictured webs in History's loom, 
Rich with the memories of three mighty lands. 

One wrought the record of the Royal Pair 
Who saw the great Discoverer's sail unfurled, 

Happy his more than regal prize to share, 
The spoils, the wonders of the sunset world. 

There, too, he found his theme ; upreared anew, 
Our eyes beheld the vanished Aztec shrines, 

And all the silver splendors of Peru 

That lured the conqueror to her fatal mines. 

No less remembered he who told the tale 
Of empire wrested from the strangling sea ; 

Of Ley den's woe, that turned his readers pale, 
The price of unborn freedom yet to be ; 

Who taught the New World what the Old could teach ; 

Whose silent hero, peerless as our own, 
By deeds that mocked the feeble breath of speech 

Called up to life a State without a Throne. 

As year by year his tapestry unrolled, 

What varied wealth its growing length displayed ! 

What long processions flamed in cloth of gold ! 
What stately forms their flowing robes arrayed ! 

Not such the scenes our later craftsman drew ; 
Not such the shapes his darker pattern held ; 



340 APPENDIX 

A deeper shadow lent its sober hue, 

A sadder tale his tragic task compelled. 

He told the red man's story ; far and wide 

He searched the unwritten records of his race ; 

He sat a listener at the Sachem's side, 

He tracked the hunter through his wildwood chase. 

High o'er his head the soaring eagle screamed ; 

The wolf's long howl rang nightly ; through the vale 
Tramped the lone hear ; the panther's eyeballs gleamed ; 

The bison's gallop thundered on the gale. 

Soon o'er the horizon rose the cloud of strife, — 
Two proud, strong nations battling for the prize, 

Which swarming host should mould a nation's life ; 
Which royal banner flout the western skies. 

Long raged the conflict ; on the crimson sod 
Native and alien joined their hosts in vain ; 

The lilies withered where the Lion trod, 
Till Peace lay panting on the ravaged plain. 

A nobler task was theirs who strove to win 

The blood-stained heathen to the Christian fold, 

To free from Satan's clutch the slaves of sin ; 
Their labors, too, with loving grace he told. 

Halting with feeble step, or bending o'er 

The sweet-breathed roses which he loved so well, 

While through long years his burdening cross he bore, 
From those firm lips no coward accents fell. 

A brave, bright memory ! his the stainless shield 

No shame defaces and no envy mars ! 
When our far future's record is unsealed, 

His name will shine among its morning stars. 






INDEX 



INDEX 



Abbotsford, 114. 

Adams, Henry, letter to Parkman, 

255. 
Angier, John, school of, 20, 21. 

Bancroft, George, letter to Park- 
man, 258. 

Batiscan River, 281. 

Bentley, Richard, 226. 

Big Crow, Indian chief, 175 et seq. 

Bigelow, Catherine Scollay, 216. 
See also Parkman, Mrs. 

Book of Boses, 236, 240. 

Bowdoin Square, No. 5, 25. 

Brimmer, Martin, autobiographical 
letter to, 327-338. 

Brown-Sequard, Dr., 232. 

Canada, Parkman's first visit to, 
42 ; second visit, 59 ; friends in, 
263-280. 

Carver, Capt. Jonathan, nom de 
plume of Parkman, 133, 134. 

Cary, George B., letter from Park- 
man, 130. 

Casgrain, Abb<5, 267-280. 

Cats, Parkman's fondness for, 322. 

Chatillon, Henry, 150, 163. 

Chestnut St., No. 50, 252, 317. 

Child, F. J., letters to Parkman, 
229, 230. 

Clark, L. Gaylord, editor of Knick- 
erbocker Magazine, 133, 134, 202. 

Clermont-Tonnerre, Comtesse de, 
292. 

Convent, Roman, 96-103. 

Coolidge, Dr. Algernon, 299. 

Coolidge, J. Templeman, 293, 300. 

Curtis, G. W., 228. 

Dionne, M. N. E., quoted, 266. 
Dwight, Edmund, letters to Park- 
man, 208-211. 

Elliott, Dr. Samuel M. , 193. 
Ellis, Dr. G. E., autobiographical 
letter to, 245. 



Farnham, C. H., 281. 

Fenwick, Rev. John E. A., 293,294. 

Fiske, John, 3, 4, 226, 298, 324. 

Fort William Henry, 34. 

Fourierites, 122. 

Frontenac and New France, 248. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 220. 

Gibraltar, 69. 

Godkin, E. L., letter to Parkman, 

256. 
Gould, Dr. G. M., 247. 

Hale, George S., 56; letters from 

Parkman, 126, 129, 135 ; letters to 

Parkman, 127, 128. 
Half Century of Conflict, 248, 278, 

303. 
Hall, Nathaniel, 20, 21. 
Hansen, Mr., second mate of the 

Nautilus, 64 et seq. 
Harper & Brother, 223, 224. 
Hart, Albert Bushnell, 4. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, poem by, 

339. 

Indians, 160-192. 
Italy, visit to, 75-108. 

Jamaica Pond, 234. 
James, Henry, 295 ; letter to Park- 
man, 256. 
Japanese lilies, 239. 
Jesuits in North America, 248, 249. 



Keene, N. H., 56. 
Knickerbocker Magaz 
201. 



xe, 29, 134, 



La Salle and the Discovery of the 
Great West, 248, 219. 

Lake George, 32. 

Le Moine, Sir James M., 265, 280. 

Lilies, Parkman's experiments with, 
239, 240. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, letter to Park- 
man, 259. 



344 



INDEX 






London, 110-113. 

Lowell, J. R., letter to Parkman, 
257. 

Malta, 73. 

Margalloway River, 45-55. 

Margry, P. A., 288-290, 305, 306. 

Massachusetts Historical Society, 
250. 

Messina, 76. 

Middlesex Fells, school and play- 
ground for Parkman, 21, 22, 28. 

Mitchell, Dr. Weir, letter from 
Parkman, 296. 

Montcalm and Wolfe, 248, 249, 254, 
255. 

Montcalm's letters, 293-295. 

Naples, 90. 

Norton, C. E., letters to Parkman, 

212-214 ; letters from Parkman, 

218-221. 

Ogillallah Indians, 160. 

Old Regime, 248. 

Oregon visited by Parkman, 148- 

159. 
Oregon Trail, The, 201-204, 213. 

Paris, 109, 231, 288. 

Parker, Theodore, 90, 92, 93. 

Parkman, Breck, 17. 

Parkman, Caroline (Mrs. Cordner), 
letters to Parkman, 13-17, 145, 
146, 194-199. 

Parkman, Rev. Ebenezer, 12, 25 ; 
his diary, 282-284, 286-288. 

Parkman, Eliza W. S., 19, 140, 233, 
252, 282-288, 303. 

Parkman, Rev. Francis, 17, 18, 25 ; 
letters to Parkman, 199, 201, 202, 
204. 

Parkman, Mrs. Francis, mother of 
Francis, 18, 19 ; her death, 288. 

Parkman, Francis, ancestry, 12 ; 
birth and boyhood, 20 ; school, 20, 
25 ; college, 27 ; explorations, 32 ; 
Margalloway, 45 ; Keene, 56 ; voy- 
age to Europe, 62 ; Gibraltar, 69 ; 
Malta, 73 ; Sicily, 75, 80, et seq. ; 
Naples, 90 ; Rome, 93 ; Roman 
convent, 97 ; Florence, 105 ; Mi- 
lan, 106 ; Paris, 109, 110 ; London, 
110-113; Scotland, 113-115; Ab- 
botsford, 114; Berkshire County, 
119 ; the law school, 125 ; social 
pleasures, 129, 130 ; The Knicker- 
bocker Magazine, 29, 134; Capt. 
Jonathan Carver, 133, 134; The 



Ranger's Adventure, 132; The 
Scalp - Hunter, 132 ; travels to 
Pennsylvania, 136, 137 ; Detroit, 
137 ; the Oregon trail, 148 ; the 
start, 148 ; emigrant train, 151 ; 
buffalo hunt, 154; The Whirlwind, 
162; Fort Laramie, 160; the rough 
journey, 168 ; Indian life, 181 ; 
journey home, 191 ; Dr. Elliott's 
care, 193 ; preparation for Pon- 
tiac, 205 ; marriage, 216 ; publica- 
tion of Pontiac, 222 ; life at Mil- 
ton, 218; Vassall Morton, 227; 
death of son, 229 ; death of wife, 
229 ; trip to Paris, 229 ; Jamaica 
Pond, 234; gardening, 235-240; 
hybridization of lilies, 239 ; Book 
of Roses, 240 ; Civil War, 243 ; The 
Pioneers, 246 ; The Jesuits, 248 ; 
La Salle, 248 ; The Old Regime, 
248 ; Frontenac, 248 ; Montcalm 
and Wolfe, 248 ; A Half Century 
of Conflict, 248 ; 50 Chestnut 
Street, 252 ; letters of praise, 255- 
261; Canada, 263-281; Quebec. 
265, 266 ; Abbe" Casgrain, 267-280 
camping at Batiscan River, 281 
trip to Paris, 288; M. Margry, 288- 
290 ; Montcalm's letters to Bour- 
lamaque, 293 - 295 ; Wentworth 
mansion, 300 ; death, 303 ; his 
character, 304 et seq. ; his opin- 
ions, 304 et seq. ; woman suffrage, 
309 ; aristocrat, 312 ; intimacies, 
316 ; nonsense, 319 ; love of cats, 
322. 

Parkman, Francis, letters of: to 
George S. Hale, 126, 129, 135; to 
George B. Cary, 130 ; to his 
mother, 104, 136, 144 ; to E. Geo. 
Squier, 215; to C. E. Norton, 218, 
219, 221 ; to Miss Mary Parkman, 
231-233 ; to Miss Eliza Park- 
man, 233, 285, 286, 299, 301, 302 ; 
to Mrs. Sam. Parkman, 238 ; to 
Dr. Weir Mitchell, 296, 297; to 
his daughter Katherine (Mrs. J. 
T. Coolidge), 322, 323 ; to Martin 
Brimmer, 245, 327-338. 

Parkman, Mrs. , wife of Francis, 217 ; 
her death, 22',). 

Parkman, Grace, 323, 324. 

Parkman, John Eliot, 19, 203. 

Parkman, Katherine (Mrs. J. T. 
Coolidge), 300, 322-324. 

Parkman, Mary E., letters to, 231- 
233. 

Parkman, Samuel, 17, 25. 

Parkman, William, 17. 



INDEX 



345 



Peabody, Joseph, 128, 129. 

Phillips, Sir Thomas, 293. 

Pioneers of France in the New 
World, The, 246, 248. 

Pontiac, Conspiracy of, prepara- 
tions for, 205 ; published, 222. 

Rome, 93-104. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, letter to Park- 
man, 259, 260. 

Roses, 235-237. 

Russell, G. R.,225. 

Russell, William, teacher of Park- 
man, 26. 

St. Botolph Club, 307. 

St. Paul's, London, 112. 

Salem, 128, 129. 

Saturday Club, 297. 

Scotland, 113-115. 

Shaw, J. Coolidge, letter to Park- 
man, 141, 142. 

Shaw. Quincy A., 143, 147-167, 190, 
191. 

Sicily, 75, 80-89. 

Slade. Daniel Den i son, 29. 



Smith, Gold win, 4. 

Smith, William, History of Canada, 
263. 

Snow, Charles A. B., letter to Park- 
man, 61. 

Snow, Jonathan, of the barque Nau- 
tilus, 64 et seg. 

Sparks, Jared, 222, 225. 

Squier, E. George, 214, 215. 

Stanstead, Canada, 43. 

Switzerland, 108, 109. 

Thayer, Gideon, teacher of Park- 
man, 25. 
Ticonderoga, 40. 

Vassall Morton, 227, 228. 

Went worth mansion, 300. 
Whirlwind, The, Ogillallah chief, 

162-167. 
White, Henry Orne, 32. 
Williams, Col. Ephraim, 34, 119. 
Winsor, Justin, letter to Parkman, 

260 ; on M. Margry, 289. 
Woman suffrage, 309. 






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